


Keeper of the Sword

by Ennazul



Series: Ennazul's Freebies [5]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura & Lance (Voltron) are Siblings, Altean Prince Lance (Voltron), Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Anarchy, Avian Shiro, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Civil War, Confident Lance, Elves, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, Gender misunderstanding, Getting Lost, Hunk (Voltron) Has Anxiety, Hunk can't swim, Hybrid Lotor, Hypnotism, Insecure Lance, Kleptomania, M/M, Mage Allura, Nearly Drowning, Orc Hunk, Rescue, Rock Climbing, Royal Consort Shiro, Sexuality Crisis, Sleepy fluff, Sneaking Out, Soulmates, Spying, Stealing, Sword in the Stone AU, Villains to Heroes, Witch Keith, everyone has Altean markings, gremlin pidge, hybrid keith, midnight chats, mortal lance, only some people in this universe have them, second place, slowburn, the prince of backstories!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2019-10-11 14:25:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17448698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ennazul/pseuds/Ennazul
Summary: [Fantasy Camelot / Sword in the Stone AU with a lot of twists]Lancelot, adoptive son of the late king Alfor, is next in line for the throne of Altea. However the citizens are wary of accepting a ruler who is not of royal blood, and demand a tournament for the throne to be held instead.Wanting to prove himself worthy of the family he had been accepted into and the position entrusted to him, Lance sets off to fulfill a prophecy dating back to the heyday of Altea: to retrieve the enchanted legendary sword Voltron from where it was irremovably buried in solid stone for centuries, to prove himself as the destined king.But then a man in a red cape beats him to it.[Note: This can be read regardless of whether you've seen Voltron or not, but contains minor spoilers.]





	1. The Day It All Went To Heck

****

* * *

  _Interesting fact:_

_Quintessence is the overlap of magic and life-force that is produced within you constantly. Some creatures can harness their inner quintessence as powers, but this weakens them through expending life-force, and they need to recharge through rest and time. If you lose or use up all your quintessence, you will die._

* * *

 

"Lance, no!" Allura fumed, brown skin tinged red, trying to match her brother's long-legged stride while keeping a weary hand on her slipping crown. _"Lance!_ Lancelot Alfor Maclane, give that back this instant!"

The spiky-haired boy laughed in reply to her threatening tone, and simply picked up the pace, the heels of his shoes clip-clapping on the marble floor of the hal. "Come and get it!" he taunted, letting the prized silk scarf trail behind him like a cape.

The princess stretched forward as far as she could reach, grasping for the billowing cloth- just for it to be yanked away at the last moment. After three tries and near-misses, she halted, stomping her foot in frustration in a way definitely unbecoming her age and political position.

"What's the matter? Can't reach?" Lance joked, waving it before her like a matador's cape.

The angry bull that was a dainty female mage shot her hand out to catch nothing but air.

Lance wrapped the scarf around his brow, piling it high on his head, then pulled a sullen face and crossed his arms over his chest. "I am the Sultana of Olkarion! You may kiss my jeweled sandals, peasant!"

Despite her brother's antics, Allura couldn't help but snicker a bit at his impression.

Lance smiled at the cheery sound that had been absent from the castle for so long. His job was done, so he surrendered the scarf.

"Oh, Lance! What would become of the famed Altean diplomacy if our allies were to hear you say that!" She punctuated the sentence by playfully whipping his arm with the material. Her smile faded a bit. "This time next week it will be your duty to uphold that reputation. It's time you leave behind these foolish games."

"Nah, I couldn't do that. You'd miss them too much," Lance teased.

"I would." She kissed him just below the outer corner of his eye.

"Gross, sis!" Lance feigned disgust, rubbing where she had planted her lips half over his mark. "You better not be wearing lipstick! I swear, Allura, if you dirtied my mark, my first action as king will be to burn all your scarves!"

She giggled, then licked the tip of her thumb and tried to wipe away the bit of deep red she had left on him. "Let me get that for you, then..."

He jumped out of reach of her saliva-coated finger. "E-eew! Allura~" he groaned.

She planted her hands on her hips. "Well if you are not going to let me help, hurry on to the bathroom and get yourself tidied up. The announcement is in five minutes!"

"Well if you hadn't been so obsessed with that scarf, we would have been there already!" Lance retorted (or rather, grumbled under his breath) as he jogged to the nearest bathroom a few halls down.

 

Scrubbing the lipstick off his mirrory-white mark took only a few seconds, but then Lance got distracted by how tousled his chestnut hair had become during his impromptu run, and had to pass a comb through it a few times. Then he noticed a dreadfully large pimple on his forehead, half-hidden by his fringe, and contemplated popping it, covering it up somehow, or just leaving it to be.

 _I'll be on the balcony,_ he assured himself. _Nobody will see it from that far. Unless, of course, somebody brings opera glasses... But that's ridiculous. Nobody brings opera glasses to these things! And even if they do, they'll be too busy staring at my perfect smile than at a pimple!_

By the time he had finished pep-talking himself, the five minutes were already up. "Shoot!" he muttered when he saw the time on the grandfather clock in the hall, and it took all his self-control to not sprint to the balcony and dishevel his hair again.

A painfully long two minutes passed before he spotted his sister and brother-in-law waiting in the tactics room. Allura, in her best sky blue dress with her white hair up in a bun and her silk scarf wrapped around her neck, was nervously peeking through a sliver in the curtains that lead to the balcony, her perfectly manicured nails caught between her teeth. The tall streak of sunlight from the outdoors fell over her cheek right on her pale blue right mark, which reflected it so brightly that Lance suspected had already given her away to the crowd.

A far more calm Shiro was casually leaning against the stone wall, looking effortlessly cool in formal Altean garb matching his pitch black marks, with gold accents and a royal blue cape, and all his dark hair slicked back. The tuft of white hair he called a fringe didn't seem to be working with the rest, though, as Shiro's favourite, Adam, kept insisting on combing it back, only for it to spring forward again like it was made of rubber.

When Shiro noticed Lance, he smiled over Adam's shoulder. "Only you, Lance," he sighed. "Only you would keep half a kingdom waiting."

"It- it- it was Allura's fault!" Lance stuttered indignantly.

Shiro's grin grew a touch more teasing. "Sure it was."

"The kingdom can wait a few moments longer, anyway. I'm not letting you go anywhere when you look like... _this._ " Adam made one last tug with the comb, then scowled and surrendered. "Fine! Be like that!" He grabbed the golden hoop resting on a pillow nearby, and placed it neatly over Shiro's skull, avoiding getting the fringe caught under it, then looked down Shiro's tunic and plucked a few loose wools off. His attention to detail was making Lance stress about the zit again. "Alright, looks like you're presentable." He gave the man's bicep a comforting squeeze before looking at Allura and clearing his throat into his hand to get her attention.

"Wha- oh." She quickly straightened, brushing the creases out her dress as she backed away from the curtain so Adam could go through.

"One minute, guys. Places," he reminded him before letting the curtain fall shut behind him.

Shiro never usually wore his crown, and it was obvious with how the man kept touching it self-consciously, but Lance supposed it was important on that particular occasion for the audience to be reminded of the trio's place in the kingdom hierachy. Lance wondered how long it would take for the people to notice that he and Allura had traded crowns, or if they would even notice at all. The difference was minute: the gem in the heir's headpiece was triangular while other children of the king's were round. Symbolically, though, it made all the world's difference.

Lance marched up to take his place, one shoulder-width away from Shiro's side, and tried to and miserably failed at looking tougher. But that was expected. While Lance was gangly, Shiro, like all avians, had broad shoulders and an overall more muscular body, not to mention he was taller than Lance by a full head. This Lance was proud of, though- when he'd first met Shiro, one of the best flyers in Altea's military, he'd only come up to the man's waist. At least he was catching up in some way.

Shiro was apparently not done with picking on him yet, despite that the clock was ticking. "I'm willing to bet you'll be late to your own funeral."

"And who gets the money if you lose?" Lance huffed. Shiro reached up to ruffle the prince's hair, and the mortal reacted like a same-charged magnet. "Don't touch the merchandise!" He slapped the gloved hand again, only to wince in pain and clutch his palm when he realized he'd hit the solid metal of Shiro's prosthetic arm. He kept forgetting which side it was. _The right one,_ he mentally noted and tucked away for future reference.

Allura, who'd returned to spying through the curtain again, gasped and hopped up, dropping the cloth back into place. "Adam just gave the herald the signal! Time to go, gentlemen!"

They stepped forward in sync, taking their places slightly behind her, Lance at her left hand and Shiro at her right. Lance gave a final pat to his hair to ensure the zit wasn't bare and exposed. He scoffed when he saw Shiro check his breath, as if people could smell it two floors down. The man was obsessed with dental hygiene, and chewed peppermint leaves like sailors chewed tobacco. Lance couldn't quite remember the story, but it had something to do with Adam's first words to him.

Allura closed her eyes, took a deep breath like it was a draught of courage, and parted the curtains just as the trumpets sounded, revealing the balcony from which they addressed citizens.

It was a large crescent shape, wrapped around one of the lower towers, and could only be accessed via the tactical room. The floor was tiled with marble, the broad railing intricately carved out of stone, and the giant arch was framed by light blue banners bearing Altea's crest. In line with it stood heralds and nobles, among them Adam. The balcony conveniently leaned over a moat separating the nobles' home from Castletown's cobblestone plaza, where people from all reaches of the kingdom, and some diplomats from foreign lands, were gathered in numbers, waiting expectantly.

The princess gracefully crossed the threshold, her earlier unease invisible, and laid her hands on the stone railing, gazing over the citizens that had come from near and far to hear the official proclamation of the nearly-due coronation. There was a loud applause, and many cheers and whistles erupted from the crowd. Somewhere from the forest's side, a large group was chanting the national anthem.

When the claps had more or less died down, Shiro and Lance's names were announced, and they joined at her sides again, receiving applause of their own.

As soon as the majority of the cheerers had paused, Allura held up a hand to silence the rest. It became so quiet that a dove could be heard cooing somewhere among the spires of the castle.

Allura narrowed her eyes and raised her chin high, commanding respect. "Thank you, people of Altea, for that gracious welcoming, and your everlasting patience," she calmly spoke, and Lance could swear her eyes flicked to him for a moment. She was at her most intimidating when addressing a crowd. Her voice, though light and sweet, was authoritative and carried far, and even the people at the back never had trouble hearing her- or agreeing with her. The idea of being in her bad books for his lack of punctuality terrified him just a little bit more than usual at that moment. On that balcony, she wasn't his sister- she was the PRINCESS.

"A month ago, tragedy struck Altea when my father, king Alfor Arusane, the gods rest his soul, unexpectedly passed. I know you all expect me, his eldest and only blood-related child, to ascend to the throne. And I am afraid I must inform you..." she sucked in another brave breath. "...that that will not be the case."

Immediately the crowd broke into a murmur, which quickly rose in volume. Before it could get out of hand, Allura silenced them again with a move of her hand. Her eyes closed completely, shutting out the puzzled, worried, frightened faces of her people. "My father... decided years ago, that I was not fit to rule, as I am unable to deliver an heir. The line of Voltrus, first king of Altea, Keeper of the Sword, ends with me." She paused for a moment, but not long enough for the people to begin their own conversations again. Changing from a solemn to a pleasant tone, she continued. "But there is no need to fear for the future of Altea! For though there are no more of King Alfor's bloodline eligible for the throne, I am not an only child. For years, King Alfor has invested his wisdom, knowledge and trust in a hand-picked heir, who is as capable of ruling our beautiful kingdom as I am, if not more. I stand here today, to announce that my adoptive brother, Prince Lancelot, is to take my place at the coronation tomorrow."

As Shiro and Allura stepped back, leaving Lance alone at the bannister, there was silence. Not even a whisper from the crowd; not even the dove on the roof broke the deathly emptiness. Lance gulped, feeling all eyes on him, and his brow broke out into a sweat. _Great, that's just going to make the zit even worse._ He had done many speeches before, at balls or public events, but none had been before a crowd quite as big as half the kingdom, nor had they been in a bad mood to start with.

"Citizens of Altea," he spoke slowly, cursing himself for not bringing his cue cards. He had been practicing for months and could recite it without peeking, but that was in front of the bathroom mirror, not a hundred thousand people he would be leading henceforth. "I, Prince Lancelot, son of Alfor, am proud to accept-"

"You call yourself the son of Alfor?" a scratchy voice in the crowd spoke up, making many heads turn to an old lady with a single tooth, a basket full of tomatoes and a nasty disposition. "You're nothing more than garbage he picked up on the street!" She tossed a tomato at him, but it only travelled one window up before gravity yanked it back down and it splattered on the stones of the plaza.

"If I may," a much better-mannered man from the crowd called up. He fixed his monocle and cleared his throat. "The line of Voltrus was blessed by the gods, and I see this as the end of that era, as the prophecies foretold. If so, why should we accept a king we did not choose, and ignore that he does not have the divine birthright that all Voltrus' descendants had? Why can we not rather choose a king we see as fit, if a new line must begin regardless?"

Murmurs of agreement appeared all around.

Then someone called out the dreaded words that ruined everything.

"We should hold a tournament for the throne!"

Lance blinked in shock as the crowd erupted in agreement. Though stated as fair by the laws, a tournament for the throne had never actually occurred in any of the forty-two generations of Altean kings. It was meant to be a series of sports, each challenge focusing on one of ten different fighting styles. The idea had been crafted in a time of war, where the strongest man was the best leader, and though Altea had since become a pacifist nation, there had never been a visible reason to change a law that was never implemented.

Until that moment. But because it was already being used against them, the royal family of Altea had no power to manipulate it to suit them better. Not unless they wanted an anarchy on their hands.

He gulped, visualizing the chaos that would ensure if the best fighter in Altea - no doubt also the cruellest and most bloodthirsty of Altea's citizens - gained control over the entire kingdom. Altea's diplomatic legacy would go down the drain. There would be chaos, fighting, civil war... Everything they had worked hard to build since Voltrus first ascended to the throne, would be destroyed.

"What's the point of a tournament?!" Lance demanded, hating his voice for cracking on him. "What makes the best weightlifter in the country any more fit to rule than me? I've been training to be king for years! Do you really want a king who has only ever been trained to fight? Do you not realize that fighting will be that person's answer to everything?"

"Go back to the gutter!" the one-toothed lady shouted again, with another feeble attempt at striking him with overripe fruit.

"Street scum!" someone else shouted.

"Poser!"

"False prince!"

"Worthless urchin!"

"You can try to hide under silk and cotton, you can coat yourself with gold, you can bathe in perfume every day, but you'll always be a turd!"

Lance was appalled. Where were all the friendly, good-hearted people his father had ruled over? The people who laughed with Lance when he cracked a joke in his speeches, and brought him gifts after a good harvest? Where were the adoring fans of Prince Lance, the master archer, the idol, the supreme tactician? Where was that bard that never stopped writing songs about his legacy? Where was the crowd of girls who always swooned at every word he spoke? Who travelled for miles to see his face? Who tossed hand-woven flower wreaths whenever he stuck his head out a window? His chin trembled and he felt tears welling up in the corners of his eyes, but he dared not let them spill. Not in front of the whole kingdom. Not on such an important day.

Allura, bless her kind soul, decided to step up and take control over the situation in the kick of time. "Silence!" she shouted. "You may not want him as king, but he is still your prince, and you should show him the proper level of respect!"

"Who do you think you are?" the old crone heckled again. "Didn't you hear what you said yourself? King Alfor doesn't want you to be queen! You're not worth any more than the peasant in prince's clothing!"

"That is correct! I am not worth as much as him! Because he is worth so much more! I, princess Allura, was born into a world of ease and luxury, and treated as a rare flower, having my every need tended to carefully in my isolated greenhouse. I was not exposed to as little as a coughing servant, and so I remained weak as I never had to fight for anything. I am fragile and I easily wilt. Prince Lancelot was born into a world of filth and cruelty, but instead of letting it define him, he used it to make himself stronger. Even dressed in rags and covered in dirt, he had something in him that king Alfor saw. Something that made him worthy of being the son of a king! Through his life experiences, Lancelot has seen evils and not let it corrupt him, and he has seen pain and not let it desensitise him. He knows more about the world of the people than I do, because he lived in it. The world both hardened and softened him in all the ways he needed it to, to be a worthy leader."

Lance stared with glossy eyes at his older sister. She really thought that of him? That his history as a pauper orphan made him a better king? That he was not just an equal to the royal family, but better, because of the hardships he'd endured? His whole life he'd been worried he had no right to live in the castle- just to have the citizens confirm his fears. But Allura, princess Allura, daughter of arguably the best king Altea had ever had since Voltrus, thought Lance was the better ruler?

"You don't want him as your king? Fine. You want a tournament so you can pick a random strong man to lead you? Fine. But when you are all living under the hard thumb of an usurper, remember that you lost the chance to be ruled by a good king who knows your hardships better than you do and would do anything to make your life easier. Remember that you brought it upon yourselves. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a tournament to arrange." And with that, she spun around, her long dress billowing around her. She took Lance's shaking hand and pulled him back inside, the curtains falling between them and the harsh citizens.


	2. The Time Lance Actually Had A Good Idea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 1 now features a cover illustration! Took me a while to figure out how to get it up. I hope it's visible to everyone? Let me know if it doesn't show up.

* * *

_Interesting fact:_

_Race is determined by the elemental alignment of the quintessence you are born with, inherited from both parents. Each species has six different pure races, one for each element, indicated by their 'marks'- sickle-shaped, toughened, shiny birthmarks underneath the outer corners of the eyes. Fire is represented by red, water by blue, earth by yellow, life by green, air by black, and neutral by white. The different races have different appearances, and unique ways to use their quintessence._

* * *

 

Lance was barely inside before he began to cry.

Instantly, Allura's hands were clasped on his cheeks, her thumbs brushing away the tears that wet his white marks. "Shh, Lance. Lance, it's okay. Don't cry," she hushed him.

The tears only dribbled out faster. Lance leaned into his sister's touch, yearning for comfort. "No it's not okay! They used to love me.... An- and now they hate me!" he choked out.

Allura cooed and shook her head. "They don't hate you, they were just shocked-"

It was like Lance was deaf to her words. He paled at a sudden visualization of the tournament: himself in the arena, sharply contrasting against trained warriors four times his size, his hands clasped around a large axe his lanky arms couldn't even lift, which he had to drag along pathetically behind him because he had nothing else to fight with. A match lost because of a single punch from an orc first that sent him flying across the arena. One of his limbs replaced by a bionic arm, after being lost not in a heroic battle, like Shiro's, but in a 'friendly' match because he didn't see an elf's sword coming. The hundreds and thousands of spectators pointing, laughing, because _that_ was supposedly a prince, and _that_ was supposedly fit for the throne, and they could all see that _that_ was simply a maggot trying to blend in with the lions. Lance's knees buckled and he would have collapsed, had Allura not kept a firm grasp on him. She gently lowered him so they kneeled together on the cold floor. "I can't win the tournament!" Lance's voice shook with a mixture of sobbing and fearful shaking. "I- I can't do it! I'm not strong enough! I'm- 'm not strong enough..."

Shiro joined them, comfortingly placing his flesh hand on Lance's shoulder and shaking it gently. Lance's whole body swayed with the movement like he was made of jelly. "Don't worry about that, Lance. There won't be a tournament."

"Yes there will!" Lance yanked his shoulder out of his brother-in-law's grasp. Shiro didn't take it personally- Lance was too emotional to consider how his actions affected others at that moment. The mortal boy hiccuped. "Th- there has to be! You know the law!"

Shiro pulled a small, sorry smile. "Not as well as you do, I'm afraid," he shrugged.

The princess seized the topic in an attempt to distract Lance from the rowdy, outraged crowd beyond the curtain that, judging by sound, was evolving into a riot. "Tell us, Lance. What does the law say?" She pressed a cocoa-shaded hand under his ducked chin, gently encouraging him to look her in the eye.

With his red eyes, damp face and leaky nose, he no longer looked like a paragon of princehood. But a teary Lance was a just as familiar sight to the castle walls as a confident Lance, and Allura knew her brother simply had to focus on a single idea if he had to be drawn out of his tumbling emotions.

Lance swallowed the lump down his throat and sniffed to clear his nose. "W- well it s-says in Kingdom Act ei- eighty-four, chapter three, Right to the Throne, paragraph sixteen..." His voice smoothed over as he recited the familiar words that had been drilled into his mind since late childhood. "'And be the voice of the gre- greater part of the people that the king is unfit, thus by fair match may a new be chosen- skills of the battlefield be the judge, and the throne be the pedestal of the Champion- be he the dethroned king, his right hand knight, or his shoe shiner. And so be that the fighters shall dine, rest and compete at the expense of the royal treasury, and be the selection of challenges the deposed king's final order. Upon coronation may the first of the new line have all the rights as become a king; the fate of the land and the citizens resting in his palms.'"

Shiro looked at Allura. "So... fifty percent? Do we hold a vote, or..?"

She bit her lower lip. "I am afraid that, since the crowd was unanimous and consisted of at least one representative from every household in the kingdom, the decision has already been made. A tournament there will be." She tugged on Lance's arm, straightening out her legs. "Come on, Lance. Stand. This is not worth dirtying your knees for."

The princess had to practically heave Lance up, whose eyes darted around like he was a cornered animal. He clutched at his hair in stress, ignoring his sister's continuous soothing. "I'm not a fighter! I can't compete against the orcs or- or the avians..."

Allura carefully pried his hands from his hair. "Nobody expects you to-"

"Yes you do! I have to!" Lance's legs were suddenly fuelled with strength as he began pacing up and down the room, over the tiled tactical map of the known world that covered most of the floor. "I have to win but I can't! If some random dude gets the throne, we'll be weak! What if Lotor gets word of this and decides to show his face again? How will the people react when they hear the line of Voltrus is not dead after all?" In his short bursts of panicked words, he'd travelled from the Eastern Islands to Taujeer and back four times.

Allura shadowed him in all his movements, trying to block him from further hysteria. "Don't be absurd! No-one would allow Zarkon's blood to ascend to the throne-"

Lance spun around suddenly, shocking her out of her voice. "You don't know that for sure!" He waved his arms so fast they looked like a blur. "Today was proof that we don't know our people as well as we thought we did! You saw how they reacted out there. They're capable of anything! If they think that they can have some stability if they made Lotor king, they'll do it. He wouldn't even have to fight for it!"

"Lance, it's okay!" Allura regained her grip of his shoulders. "It's okay! It's alright!" She took a deep breath, then portrayed all certainty. "Shiro will win the tournament for you."

Lance's brow creased, his hopeful eyes casting to the wingless avian. "He will?"

"I will?" Shiro uncertainly echoed. Then his dark eyes met Allura's flaming blue ones, and he quickly fixed his expression. "I will," he nodded, smiling.

Allura grinned in relief. "You see, Lance? You know Shiro is capable of completing those challenges in record-time. And he is on our side. He may not be educated in ruling a kingdom, but that is where you come in." She patted his shoulder for emphasis. "On the surface you'll be his right-hand man, but in truth he will just be the face of the king, while you'll be the mind- doing all the kingly duties as Father taught you to."

Lanve very badly wanted to believe her reassurances, but... "That doesn't change the fact that the two of you can't have an heir," he croaked, hopelessly shrugging his arms. "Which is the reason this whole mess began in the first place."

Immediately Allura had a counter-argument. "Shiro can take on a second wife. Since he would be the new bloodline, any of his offspring would count."  
  
The avian's face immediately revealed his opinion on that idea. "Allura, I- I can't do that!" he insisted, aghast. It wasn't abnormal in Altea for a nobleman or even the king to have multiple wives delivering heirs, but not only were the honourable avians strictly monogamous, it was well-known that Shiro felt no emotional connection to women. It had been hard enough to convince him to enter a political-only marriage with Allura, which he agreed to only after being promised Adam would be housed in the castle, too, and that they'd be free to continue courting publically. The goal had been simply to introduce powerful avian blood to the royal line... which hadn't exactly worked out.  
  
Again, the princess had a plan. "If Lance marries an avian girl, we could pass their first child off as ours and say I was mistakenly deemed infertile. The line continues, the crown returns to our family without any drama, and everyone is happy!"

Lance reluctantly nodded. Though he wasn't too excited about limiting his options to avians (as beautiful as the tall, strong, winged female warriors were, with their raven hair and flawless pale skin and _oh wait there's no downside_ ), and though it probably meant his marriage would be arranged for him (and soon), it was the best plan they had. The kingdom was at stake- his love-life came second.

"There you go!" Allura eased, her voice sparkling with positivity. "See, Lance? There is always a solution for everything."

He chuckled lightly, but it sounded like choking. "You're gonna make a great queen, Sis."

"And _you're_ going to make a great advisor." She kissed both his marks. "Now. Go rinse out your eyes and get some rest. Today was a tough day for all of us."

* * *

"I still cannot believe our people would act this way." In the middle of the night, Allura's worries had gotten the better of her, prompting her to seek out her consort, advisor and best friend- who had been awake with his own worries for the future. She was plaiting and unplaiting locks of her own hair in nervousness, to give her restless fingers something to do. Shiro was sitting on the foot-tend of the bed, in nightclothes with his hair disheveled, the white tufty fringe hanging to his brows, and a sleepy Adam slumped over his back.

"Can't you two talk politics in the morning?" Adam grumbled, his lids drooped. Not that he could see much when they were open, since his charmed eyeglasses were still resting on the nightstand. Witch magic had all but blinded him only a few days before Shiro had found the elf wandering through the woods helplessly, struggling to find the path home after being released by his captors. "Takashi... back to bed." His head slumped, forehead resting on his partner's shoulder.

Allura smiled a little at the use of Shiro's first name, as she sat on the stool in front of the vanity desk that served no purpose in the consort and his favourite's room, since they acted as one another's mirrors most of the time. Avians were far too respected for most to dare call them so causally by their first names- even Allura and Lance only ever used a shortened version of his last name. But Adam, raised within a gremlin society, cared little about status and formalities, which had allowed him to break through the barrier of impersonality that isolated avians from other races.

Shiro patted the side of Adam's head. "Five more minutes, Love," he promised, carding his fingers through the curly brown hair. "You're right, Allura. They wouldn't." His brows lowered, his face hardening. "Not unless they were put up to it."

Allura froze midway through a plait. "What do you mean, Shiro? Did you see something?"

"I wasn't sure if this was a good idea to talk about in front of Lance, since he was already so alarmed at the idea of Lotor coming back, but..." He sighed, lowering his eyes for a moment before meeting her gaze once again. "The woman who threw tomatoes- her marks were black, but she didn't have wings. And I know the name and face of every avain who have lost theirs. She wasn't one of them."

"Convenient she brought tomatoes, too," Adam added, before yawning. "You didn't exactly call the kingdom together for a picnic."

Allura's eyes had proceededly grown wider as they spoke, ending up as big as saucers as she fully caught on. "No! It can't be!"

Shiro solemnly nodded. "What's more, that woman who shouted that we should hold a tournament was wearing a cape, and making a point of keeping her head lowered. I couldn't see her face at all. She could have been anything. Mortal, wingless avian, elf, mage, orc... _witch._ And the worst of the shouting came from her, the old woman, and the man dressed as a duke. The three of them started the trouble, and we have no idea who they are."

The princess gave a nod of understanding. "So you're saying that-"

"-there were witches mixed with the crowd, and they stirred up the riot," Shiro completed her sentence.

Allura clutched the sides of the stool like her life depended on it. "But what are they doing here? Why now, of all times- the worst time they possibly could? How did they come to know?"

"M'be somebody tipped them off the announcement wasn't gonna go as expected," Adam mumbled, cheek pressed against Shiro's back.

"Witches in the castle?!"

"Maybe not witches, but their spies. Many elvish tribes are restless lately," Shiro quickly added, rubbing Adam's hand where it was resting on his heart. "They could easily be cloaked and hiding in halls or behind doors without us even knowing. There could even be one with us in this room." Out of the corner of his eye he saw a movement at the open door, but when he shifted his gaze it was gone.

"Nope."

The royal spouses focused their attention to Adam.

"I would have noticed," he grumbled. "M' glasses overcome invisibility. If they were hiding, I would have seen them. No elf's been where they're not supposed to be."

"I think we would have noticed witches in disguise, though," Shiro pondered.

"You're thinking too hard about it." The roll of Adam's eyes could be heard in his voice. "You don't need to be a spy to know Alfor chose Lance. Heck, every last kitchen hand knew. It just took one person to let it slip to their family, who told it to the milkman, who told it to the farmer... But nobody'd be stupid enough to just tell it to a witch. The tip had to be sold. And you're on the right track that the elves are restless. As much as I hate to sell out my own kind, they've had a grudge on the royal family since Voltrus passed and would only be too glad if Altea dissolved entirely and became open land that didn't belong to anyone, and had no sole ruler. Like the Hinterlands."

"And deserted and treeless and dead, like the Hinterlands too, I suppose." Allura hmphed and crossed her arms, blowing a stray white hairlock - a colour unique to mages, though they came in more natural colours as well - out of her face in one of her rare, less graceful moments. "We've allowed them to keep all their sacred land as independent tribes and never broke our part of the treaty! Why would they want to replace us with a power-hungry barbarian? Much less someone with witch blood like Lotor, who would only sap the forests of their life! If the elves are siding against Altea, then the elves are fools. Witches have never cared for the natural order of things. They'll destroy sylvan forests like they destroyed their own lands."

"Hey, I'm with you on this one." Adam yawned again, jaw audibly cracking. "Yeah, never mind, I'm on whatever side gets this surprise meeting over with the fastest."

"It would be foolish," Shiro agreed with Allura, "or it might not be the elves at all. We don't have proof. But either way, something tells me this riot would have happened whether it was you or Lance. After all, you would have been the first queen monarch in Altea's history."

Allura's shoulders slumped and she looked into the mirror- but instead of seeing herself in all her beauty, she saw how the royal guards had to block the angry citizens from crashing and storming into the castle only a few hours before. "This is dreadful. If Haggar gathered more cults, what with the tournament and the rowdy civilians, our army would be spread too thinly for us to defend the kingdom. It's like they're recruiting our own people to fight us! And what if the soldiers refuse to listen to us? What if they feel the same way as these people? That we have no right to command?" Her jittery hands began to make the thinnest plates possible, every switch of the locks between her fingers accompanied by a sharp tug.

"C'mon, Allura, you're talking to an avian," Adam reminded her boredly.

"He's right. You know the avians will always be loyal to the line of Voltrus, and whoever they support," Shiro agreed, meeting the eye of her reflection. "You will have your strongest fighters at your side, to the end, may it be in our favour."

She smiled gratefully. "Of course. How could I forget? I can always count on the loyalty of the sky people." The strict honour code of the avians, who began knight training so soon that it was rumoured their umbilical cord was cut with a sword, ensured that they were above suspicion of treachery. "Perhaps this will not be so helpless at all." Allura sighed, her grin vanishing to be replaced by a sad frown. "Things would have been so much simpler if I hadn't taken on so much of my mother. She struggled with bearing children, too. It was a miracle I was born, and only after my parents' youth was mostly gone. My father used to say it was a fact of mage women- it is nearly impossible for them to bear anything but pure mage children. And because I am not all mage," she exhaled a long, heavy breath again, "my children never could be, either." She kept a stiff upper lip, but Shiro could see she was cracking beneath the surface. She alone carried the guilt of failing to continue a sacred bloodline.

"By that logic, if you hadn't taken on as much of your mother, you wouldn't have been born." It really shocked Shiro how much Adam dared to pipe into their technically classified conversation. The elf bore no higher respect for Allura than any other citizen, and wouldn't be silenced by the presence of his superior.

"He's right, you know," Shiro agreed. "Your own life makes it worth it. We were blessed with one last generation to make things right."

"And I will do my best to ensure that. We cannot just have the crown thrown around like it is a penny. If anyone besides Lance must be on the throne, I trust no-one other than you."

Shiro appeared uncertain about the weight of the responsibility Allura believed he could carry, and Adam seemed to sense this, squeezing him a bit tighter. Shiro shook his head. "Allura... The people wouldn't accept me so easily."

Allura crossed her arms stubbornly. "You think they'd accept a hybrid witch son of Zarkon instead? The people adore avians. Even wingless, they see you as nothing short of an angel."

The avian's eyes cast down sadly. "...They saw Lance that way, too."

Her lids closed at the thought, and a crease formed between her upturned brows. "The poor boy," she whispered. "It really hurt him to see them act that way towards him. Like being betrayed a hundred thousand times over. Hopefully this will pass along with the riots by the end of the tournament, and they may love him once more as they always have." In the moments of silence that followed her words, she opened her eyes and carefully studied Shiro. "How are you feeling?"

Shiro was for a moment frozen in surprise at her concern. Then he eased and shrugged. "Nervous, I suppose. Worried. I should probably train harder for the next... How long until the tournament?"

"Likely it will only take a week to prepare, and the citizens would push for it to happen as soon as possible, but I could delay it a bit if you need. How long will it take you to be ready?"

The avian smirked. "A lifetime, preferably."

Allura couldn't find it in herself to laugh at the joke. She sighed heavily, like the weight of Altea rested on her shoulders- which it indeed did. Or a large part of it, at least. "I, too, wish we had the option to ignore the demon on our doorstep. Earlier I looked at Lance and wondered, why did it have to be now, during our reign? Then I realized, it had to happen in someone's reign, and whoever it was would have bore similar sentiments as I. So I suppose such a question is invalid. It is how it is."

"It is also late," Adam grumbled, surprising Shiro since he'd thought the elf had fallen asleep since his last comment.

"Yeah. We all need our rest. We can discuss the details tomorrow." Shiro waited for the princess to leave, but she stayed put, staring at the carpet in thought. "...Allura?"

She raised her chin and her eyes moved to his face. "I feel you should take the Sword of Darkness with you. When you go."

Her words caused him to freeze like he was encased in ice.

The princess quickly continued. "I know how hard it would be to you, and I know I promised my father I would make sure it was never used again, but I don't think we have much of a choice. No other sword in the castle could last against a well-forged orcish blade. And your competition will be fierce. Please, _please_ consider taking the sword with you."

Shiro sighed, his head dropping and his lids falling shut. He felt Adam's arms tighten around his waist comfortingly, and squeezed back gratefully. "Allura, I... I don't think I can do that." He forced himself to make eye contact with her. "The last time I saw that sword, Zarkon was still holding it. I'm not sure if I could bear to even face it again, let alone fight with it."

"...I know," Allura murmured, her voice low. "And I'm sorry, but it will give you the advantage you need in the trial for the throne. We possess no stronger weapon."

"I... understand. And I'll try," he promised.

"I wish you the best of luck, both in the training and the tournament." She bowed her head.

"You're not coming with, are you?" he asked softly. "To the tournament, I mean. If I win, I'm not so sure how the people would receive me. Your voice of reason might be needed."

"I suppose, but it is needed more here," she explained. "With the brewing anarchy it is more important than ever for someone to remain in the castle and establish control, especially among the soldiers. I can send the mice with you, so we can still communicate during that time."

His brow remained furrowed in worry. "Are you sure you'll be okay on your own?" he asked.

"I won't be on my own," she reminded him. "I'll have Lance. And I'll ask Coran to join me here. His knowledge and powers will prove a valuable aid in these troubled times."

Shiro smirked and raised a brow. "Once you get past his moustache and stories about the olden days."

As she envisioned her 600-year-old godfather, and also her father's advisor (and that of several kings before him), telling a ridiculous tale about his youth while stirring up a pot of something vaguely edible with one hand and freezing attacking witches' feet to the floor with the other, she couldn't help but giggle. Coran the wizard was never a bore. She ducked her head and covered her smile until her bubbly laughter ceased. It was the second time she had laughed in one day- perhaps a sign that things were turning for the better. "Yes," she grinned. "Once you get past that."

She stepped towards a tall portrait of an Altean sunset over rolling hills and farmland, and tugged at the frame. It opened like a door, revealing the secret corridor that connected the most important officials' bedrooms to the basement, meant to hide in if the castle was seiged. Of course, Lance and Allura had abused it for their games constantly since their youth, and Allura had no qualms about using it even in adulthood to get around even in the most casual situations.

Once the portrait shut behind her, Shiro began to wriggle free from Adam's grip so he could climb back under the sheets. "Come on- meeting's over."

"I don't want you to go," Adam murmured, crawling back up to the pillow like a sloth, feeling for the edge of the sheets. "And I don't think you want to, either. I thought you were done with fighting."

Shiro gulped, hesitating for a moment. Adam knew more than anyone how he felt about being in an arena again. "I don't want to do it, but I will," he said, nodding.

"Thought so." Adam's head collapsed on the pillow, and he began to kick the sheets back so he could force his legs under them. "You've always got to be so stupidly selfless."

"Even if you won't let me do it for Altea, let me do it for you."

Adam rolled his blind eyes. "Fine," he gave in. His face then creased with worry. "How sure do you feel about this plan, though?"

"Allura seems sure, but... I don't think I can guarantee I'll win," Shiro admitted as he got under the bedding. "I'm out of practice. I haven't fought anything other than a training dummy, and with any weapons besides brawlers' blades, since... And without my wings... I don't know if I'll be good enough."

The elf cheekily grinned in the way that Shiro knew meant he had a really bad, really good idea. "Maybe somebody could add a dash of good luck or a charm that'll help you regain your experience."

Shiro, who'd begun to snuggle to his side, pulled back abruptly, staring wide-eyed at Adam in shock. "We... we can't cheat the tournament!" Cheating was another taboo in the culture of avians. Of course for elves, particularly gremlins, everything was fair game.

Adam shrugged. "Desperate times call for desperate measures. The people aren't being fair, either, and if cheating is what it takes to keep this country from falling apart, we've got to try. It's not fair that this had to happen and it's not fair that you have to carry the burden. You've already done so much for Altea, and now she's asking this? Not just that you have to go back in an arena, but use the Sword of Darkness, too? You could have a flashback and freeze up and get hurt, or worse - die - and-"

Shiro caught his ranting partner's cheek in his palm, and instantly he stilled. "I'll be okay. I just might not win, but I'll be okay. I'll manage." He rubbed circles into his skin with his thumb. "Can I count on your support, though? Will you come with me? To the tournament?"

The creases on Adam's face softened. "Nothing can keep me from being there for you." 

 

As silent as he could, Lance slid away from the entrance to the consort's bedroom he'd been eavesdropping through. He backed down the quiet hall two steps, eyes remaining on the door in fear that someone would peek out at any moment and see him, before turning his back on it and preparing to full-on sprint back to his quarters.

He only took one step, though, before he had to swing his legs out mid-motion, stumbling and regaining balance just in time to avoid face-planting and crushing the creature he had gone through all the effort to not step on. He landed in an awkward, wide-stanced pose and froze with his hands in the air like he'd just pulled off a kung fu move. The mouse simply looked up at him curiously, nose twitching, seemingly unaware that Lance had nearly sacrificed his finely-shaped nose (if he may say so himself) for the sake of sparing its life.

His eyes worriedly met the beady black ones. The mouse - Chulatt, he guessed it was ( _Chulatt is the fat one, right?_ ) - was one of a troop of four his sister had cast a spell on as an extra credit in her level seven magic finals, eight years before. Long-term mass telekinesis was a difficult spell to perfect, and a sign of high potential, but most people who succeeded removed the spell shortly after casting it, satisfied with having proven themselves. Allura, however, grew attached to her new companions very fast and absolutely refused to have them taken away- even allowing them to sleep in the same bed as her most nights.

They were Allura's little personal spies, though hardly ever used in political espionage and more for Allura to gather dirt on other people living in the castle (she especially enjoyed poking fun at Adam and Shiro's pet-names for each other). They told her everything they saw, including who they saw snooping through the halls in the middle of the night.

He slowly moved a finger to his lips, and while giving the mouse a warning look, hissed, "Shhh..." as quietly as he could.

The mouse gave a mock-salute and scampered past him, allowing Lance to relieve his tight chest from the breath he'd been holding. He had a certain amount of control over their gossip, since all four mice adored him for sneaking them treats after every dinner. He peeked back at the door one more time before skating down the hall as fast as he could without making a sound.

 

Despite that the rough day had sapped him of all his energy, instead of collapsing into bed, he hovered in the cozy nook with floor-to-ceiling shelving in the corner of his room that had become his own personal library. Some of the books he'd been given personally, as gifts from his family or fellow nobility, while others he had bought himself. Then there were the few he may have permanently borrowed from other castle libraries...

...making up the bulk of his collection.

He was a sucker for anything with fine illustrations, not being much of a word reader himself. It was widely known that the mages were the best bookmakers, not only because of their skill in the craft or education with words, but also because they used magic to paint the exact images they visualised in their minds onto the pages.

And they were vivid. He especially adored ocean landscapes and pictures of space as it was seen through the scholars' telescopes.

Settling cross-legged on a spongy pillow like he was a preschooler, Lance slid a thick, heavy volume that he knew contained some of the best pictures out from the bottom shelf. He grunted as he set it on his legs, opening at a random page.

It was a collection of fairy tales the nurses used to read to him and Allura when they were young. He took a deep whiff of the woodsy smell of old paper and sighed contentedly, shoulders losing their rigidness. Stories could make him lose himself in memories, and that was exactly what he needed if he ever wanted to get to sleep that night. He fanned through the thick yellow pages, words and pictures flashing by, until he reached the tale of The Little Mermaid- which had some of his favourite pictures.

And not just because there were some really attractive mermaids illustrated.

The ocean had always drawn Lance- an unusual thing for a mortal, seeing as water was the element of the mages. It made him fit better into his predominantly-mage adoptive family, though, but they tended to prefer calmer, safer waters like lakes.

Though mortals were known for maintaining a healthy interest in each element, Lance's love for the deep sea beyond the horizon was an exceptional one. He suspected it was the mystery that attracted him- like space, the ocean was unexplored. There was just so much to be found, and so many adventures that could be lived.

If Lance could have had it his way, his first choice for a future career would have been a well-respected explorer beloved by all (especially the ladies), but ruling over an entire kingdom was a close second, so he wasn't all that disappointed.

Until the job he'd been sweating himself training for for years was cruelly ripped from his fingers and replaced with a new label of inadequacy.

_Nope. Nuh-uh. Not thinking about that._ He buried his nose deeper into the book, as if that might make him forget that the people rudely denied him as a leader and his family might lose their noblehood and home if his ex-military brother-in-law couldn't win a fight against the toughest fighters in the kingdom. _Totally not thinking about that. It's the last thing on my mind._

After absentmindedly paging through all the illustrations, too lazy to follow the words he'd practically memorized, he reached the next fable.

_The Sword in the Stone._

His fingers traced over the title illustration of the red-and-white sword buried deep in a rock. The story wasn't as much a fable as it was a much argued upon myth, the truth lost in history. Supposedly the sword had helped Voltrus, the first king of Altea, to chase the evil witches out of their kingdom, and unite the other human races peacefully to form what was the largest kingdom in the known world. Altea started with a golden age under his rule, which continued until his death, when in old age he was ambushed by witches and unable to defend himself. As his last act, he'd buried the sword, Voltron, deep into solid stone, and no-one thus far had ever been able to pull it out. It was said that, though Voltrus would have a blessed family line that would last many generations, no ruler after him would be as brilliant and illustrious as him- not until the sword allowed itself to be pulled out by the one who is destined to be the next great king of Altea, and a new golden age would begin.

Voltrus was a real historical figure whom lead a crusade against the witches and formed Altea, but whether the sword in the stone near the village Timbershire was his, and was all the legend claimed it to be, was highly doubted. For one, it looked too advanced to have been created at the time of Voltrus' rule. Secondly, though impressive, it was smaller than the heavy sword that appeared in the old, faded portraits of Voltrus, and the pictures in the tale were based on the Timbershire sword, not the castle paintings. Thirdly, even the mages couldn't figure out the science behind how the sword could only be pulled out by one person, or increase the strength of the wielder as the legend foretold, and brushed it off as being a sword that would never budge and a legend that would never come true.

Most people believed that the myth had been built around a sword that conveniently got stuck there, or that it was a fake specifically put there by the royal family to remind anyone with dreamed of kinghood who was boss. But Lance believed the legend. Oh, how he believed in it! Not realizing the implications it would have had for his family, he'd dearly hoped in his younger years that he'd get to meet the destined king of the legends; the Keeper of the Sword. He'd crossed his fingers for every seemingly suitable man from across the sea who drew in a crowd to witness his success or failure with the sword. When he'd first met Shiro he'd been almost convinced the avian could fit the role, but Shiro had dismissed it and said he'd had enough of swords for a lifetime.

Lance couldn't blame him. After all, it was under a sword that Shiro had lost his wings.

There had also always been that faint glimmer of hope that perhaps the sword was waiting for Lance. He'd never dared to let himself dream about it, though, finding himself unworthy in so many ways.

And the people had only served to prove it wasn't just him that saw his shortcomings.

He clenched the book a little harder, knuckles turning white, and pinched his eyes closed to avoid teardrops landing on the aged pages of his favourite book. He shoved it off his lap and drew his feet close, hugging his knees to his chest.

_What if I'm not meant to be king? What if they're right and I'm worthless?_ his mind asked him. _What if I_ am _fit to be king but they're too blind to realize it? What if the kingdom falls apart because they pick somebody else? What if, what if..._  Through the blurriness in his eyes, with the dampness welling up because he refused to let it spill, he observed the picture of the sword. _...What if I_ am _meant to be king? What if I just never get the chance to prove it?_ He gulped at his next thought. _What if... I_ can _prove it?_

He boosted the book back into his lap, scanning through the story's epilogue once more.

Voltrus' line had ended in the same generation that a boy was taken from the streets to join the royal house. If fate existed, it had never presented itself in a more picturesque way. _What if Voltron isn't pulled out by an inexperienced pauper who is fated to be king? What if Voltron is pulled out by a prince who must prove he is the rightful king? What if... Voltron's been waiting for_ me?

* * *

 


	3. The Way The Universe Just Seems To Hate Lance

* * *

_Interesting fact:_

_Alteans' marks are their pride. Covering up or painting one's marks is considered a shame, and the worst torture an Altean can suffer is for their marks to be scarred. Disfiguring someone's marks is equivalent to removing their race identity- though they still have their natural quintessence, they can no longer proudly display their ethnicity. Having your marks disfigured is a traumatising experience._

* * *

 

"This is a really, really bad idea, Lance," Hunk insisted in a hushed tone, but still meekly crept after the prince's dark silhouette. "Like, even in comparison to your usual ideas, this is like, really bad."

"Oh, shut up! Where's your sense of adventure?" Lance teased playfully, hindered by the risk of getting caught just enough to cautiously stick his head around a corner and check that the coast was clear before throwing himself into the next section of the hallway.

Hunk tried to disappear in Lance's shadow, but it was difficult with their size difference- Lance being a lanky mortal and Hunk being an orc of decent proportions. It always puzzled Lance how the boy could be such a nervous wreck when he was big and strong enough to snap Lance in two.

"I think I dropped it two adventures ago," Hunk muttered, turning on his feet. "I'll go get it!"

Lance immediately caught onto his plan and held him back by his collar. "Hey-hey, no abandoning me!"

"Lance if we get caught again I'll get into so much trouble! I could get fired and my family really, really needs me to have this job and-"

"Who's gonna fire you? Allura? Sal?" Lance poked him in the stomach. "You're too valuable in the kitchen for anyone to let you go even if you burnt down the hall of portraits. We're just sneaking out, _you_ only because you're obeying my orders. If we get into trouble, I'll vouch for you. I'll say it was all my idea."

Hunk rolled his eyes. "Lance, it _is_ all your idea. It's always your idea."

Lance was notorious for sneaking out of the castle, and though it made him an annoyance to his relatives and bodyguards, the kingdom loved - check that, _had_ loved - him for it, because he took the time to walk among them like an ordinary citizen. In the end, a mix of his sister's pleas and his own unfortunate experiences prompted him to at least take someone along each time. The guards were too stuck-up to loosen up and have fun with him, and most of the servants were too afraid of the royal family's wrath. Hunk, however, was easier to persuade, and though he complained most of the way, at least he went all the way.

What was more, Hunk, as a member of the least 'human'-looking of the human races, with his large, blocky teeth, long arms, square head and rock-like skin, easily drew the attention away from the prince in disguise. Lance only needed to ditch the crown, pull on some duller clothes, hook a bow over his shoulder and strap a quiver to his thigh, and he passed off as a hunter.

"All the more reason for them to believe me." He released Hunk and waved him over. "Come on! We're almost there!"

At once Hunk seemed to be aware of where they were. "Lance... this is the way to the kitchen."

"So?"

Hunk took on a jog to keep up with the leggy prince. "Soooo the entrance is at the other side of the castle."

"Hunk, my buddy, my man, Sneaking Out 101 requires one to not use the front door. If you really don't want to get caught, this is the way to go- through the greenhouse. Lubos is the only guard there on Mondays, and he's always so full of booze and leftovers that he wouldn't notice if a stampede of yelmores ran him over!" He shouldered open the swinging doors and at once found himself in the cluttered but clean main kitchen. At a more humane hour the place would be bustling with all sorts of humans, but mainly orcs, carrying and chopping produce, kneading dough (one squish and orcish hands succeed at what takes a delicate mage half an hour of beating), minding the stoves and decorating dishes. However at three in the morning it was almost eerily quiet, the moonlight shining through the glass wall the kitchen shared with the greenhouse, bathing everything in a soft blue light.

Only an hour before, Lance had still been staring at the picture of the legendary sword, and the only reason he hadn't set off immediately was because he first wanted to leave a letter on his pillow saying where he was going (another thing he'd learned from experience was wise to do) and Hunk was a heavy sleeper. Lance had to stand on the orcish servant's dresser and body-slam the sleeping boy to get so much as a stir out of him.

Like he'd predicted, Lubos was reclining on a garden chair in the greenhouse, head tilted back and a mucous bubble on his nostril inflating and deflating as he snored. As they tiptoed between herbs, flowers, vegetables and baskets, keeping a weary eye on the dozing gardener, Lance was hit by an overwhelming urge to find a pen and draw a moustache on the careless servant's punchable sleeping face. The only thing that held him back was the knowledge that he couldn't stray from the goal. He had possibly only one night before a full-blown anarchy erupted.

 

Once out the door and into the fresh, cool, damp night air, they were almost in the clear. Lance steered Hunk blindly to the moat, where a series of stepping stones allowed for one person to cross at a time. Allura's mice guarded this secret crossing from her bedroom window, but only to watch out for people coming _in,_ not for those sneaking _out-_ or at least he hoped so. It was meant to serve as an emergency exit in case the drawbridge was seiged.

Orcs, with their solid, heavy structures and their dense bone and muscle, hated water because they sunk in it like a stone. Which was why Hunk screeched to a stop just at the bank, arms waving to keep his balance. Lance had to promise that once he was king, he'd declare Hunk the lead breakfast and dessert chef and give jobs in the kitchen to his entire family, in order to bribe him into crossing.

Despite Hunk's fears, he managed to get to the other side without soaking as much as a foot. When he stepped back onto the grass, he shakily collapsed on the ground, sending prayers of thanks to the orcish goddess of the earth, Balmera, as he peppered kisses to the dirt, while Lance patted his back comfortingly, despite shifting in impatience. It had taken a full hour for Hunk to cross the moat, as he'd demanded a breather between each stone.

And it took another hour for them to follow the River of Heart - one of the five chakra rivers that originated in orcish Altea - and reach the bridge that marked the entrance to Timbershire. There was a proper road through the open fields leading to it, carved into the ground by many years' worth of cartwheels, footsteps and yelmore hooves, but even late at night it was trekked by merchants and hunters, and Lance preferred to make as little contact with people as possible. If the hatred for the royal family he'd seen the previous day had been genuine, he wouldn't give two coppers on his neck being spared, were they to recognize him.

Halfway across the gently arching stone bridge and entering the glowing yellow light of the fires that lit the town, Lance tucked himself behind Hunk's frame so his face would be shielded from the locals. Only at the bridge crossing would they be exposed- after that they could stick to the shadows.

Timbershire was just as its name implied- a woodcutter's town. Logs were heaped up next to randomly clustered wooden houses. There were a few barns to shelter cart-drawing animals, and two or three stone wells with thatch tops to draw water from. It was a very simple, unpretentious town, with a huge community spirit- at the heart of the town was a bonfire where the townspeople often ate together and socialized, but the glows of several smaller fires from home hearths could be spied through doors and windows. All the children were indoors, but most of the men and a few women were gathered in small, hushed groups, conversing about matters that should be kept silent.

All around were the hisses of whispers and crackles of open fires, while somewhere a late-night worker was sawing his logs. Louder calling and bustling could be found in a scurrying group that were lugging planks onto a shaded cart as a lumber master discussed payment with a merchant.

With his back to a barn and his face obscured by the shadows, Lance couldn't help but feel that the day's announcement had polluted the town's atmosphere. Voices weren't low to keep from waking people, but to avoid getting overheard. He managed to catch a passing group of three hunters, each's spoils thrown over a shoulder, hiss the words, 'heir,' tournament' and 'princess' in the passing. He sighed. Everyone felt so unsettled about the change in order. Until a new king was coronated, the people would keep gossiping. "Let's go," Lance whispered, tugging on Hunk's sleeve. They quickly slipped into another series of shadows. As they neared a smaller campfire, a voice grew louder.

"...and I've slain every beast the forest has thrown at me! I never come back from a hunt empty-handed, and when I am king I will provide for the people like I do for my family! Altea will improve tenfold! Everyone will own a mine and a castle and slaves, and their slaves will own slaves, who'll have castles of their own, and the treasury will be divided among the people, and I will abolish taxes..."

_People who plan to compete in the tournament are rallying supporters,_ Lance realized. _And a lot of empty promises he's giving, too! I bet they believe every one of them, though._ He shook his head. _And to think he actually stands a chance. We wouldn't even need Lotor to rip this country to shreds if that guy was in the big chair._ He shut out the voice, focusing on making his shadowed travels appear nonchalant.

But the booming sound grew louder, and soon the owner - a burly-looking man whose marks were reflecting too much in the firelight to identify, but Lance suspected was part orc, part elf, based on his complexion and size - could be seen, along with a gathering crowd. His head and upper body stuck up far above them, either because he was standing on something (perhaps a tree stump- there were many littered in and around Timbershire, which was built on a felled forest) or because he was freakishly tall. Lance hoped for Shiro's sake it was the former.

Someone asked the man something in the line of where all the slaves would come from, if every Altean were free. His answer - Lance assumed he singled out a race as becoming the others' slaves - immediately lost him his audience. Some broke off from the crowd, while others ripped the man from his impromptu pedestal and began to beat him senseless. Soon there were several tumbling piles of fighting men, and people were running every-which way to join, cheer or get away. Unfortunately for Lance and Hunk, the biggest fight blocked them off from the edge of the village. A good crowd of at least thirty people clogged up the only non-lit alley heading out on that side of the village. If they could just get past without being pulled into the fight, they were home free.

Lance's head turned back to Hunk, and he looked him up and down. There was no way the orcish teen could slip past untouched. For once Lance's lanky form would come in handy. "I'll go through here- you take another way!" Lance ordered.

But before he could dart off, Hunk grabbed his arm. "Are you nuts?! We are _not_ splitting up!"

"Hunk, I need to stay in the shadows, and you can't get through there without them bumping into you-"

During their short argument, the unconscious hunter-turned-politician was dragged back into the heart of the village, presumably to the stocks, the cheering and whistling crowd that followed the prisoner enveloping the servant and prince. Immediately they were being pushed and shoved along. Lance ducked his head, trying to blend in with the mob while working his way out the crowd. It seemed he and Hunk were not the only ones unfurtunately caught- several people were pushing the opposite way the hunter was being dragged.

Finally he saw buildings instead of just more arms and legs, and he darted out of the crowd- only to find him in another, which though more thinly-spread was moving quicker. He realized begrudgingly that they'd been pulled along all the way back to the bridge, where a crowd of travellers had just arrived.

Amidst all the chaos, he bumped into a shoulder with enough force to send them both stumbling.

"I am so sorry!" Lance immediately said, spinning around to face the victim of his terrible dodging skills. He instinctively reached out in apology. "I didn't mean to-" He stopped.

Because those eyes were something else.

They were dark blue like the ocean during a storm, with such depth and intensity that Lance felt he was looking into visions of far-off galaxies, brighter and more dazzling than the pictures in his books, and when the firelight flickered brighter, it made them glow purple momentarily. He found himself frozen in place, just staring at the dark, luminescent pools that were watching him back with equal wonder, which befuddled him since his own eyes were so plain in comparison. He dug deeper, and he could swear he read an entire life's worth of memories in an instant, but the moment he was done scanning through, it was forgotten like a dream. A dream he wanted to have again.

He wanted to see through those eyes again. He wanted to see those eyes every day of his life- greeting him every morning when he woke up, being there every time he looked to his side and being the last thing he saw before his own eyes closed forever.

"Lance, there you are!" Hunk's voice seemed far-off in his trance, like he was underwater and Hunk was calling from the surface. Only when Hunk grabbed his arm and yanked, was he pulled back down to Earth from where he'd been floating among the stars.

Suddenly he was being dragged through the crowd by the hurried orc. He craned his neck back to get one last glimpse of the eyes, and only then did he get the full picture of the owner. Disappointingly, a rust bandanna covered her face from the bridge of her nose to her chin- a covering typical to desert dwellers to protect them from airborne sand. What he could see of the face consisted of paper-pale skin and dark, arched brows. Her longish, uneven raven locks were mostly covered by the hood of a cape that reached mid-thigh, blood-red and tattered at the seams like it had not only been ripped shorter, but had also seen many brambles in its lifetime. He only had a moment to admire the eyes beyond the irises, large and long-lashed and tilted slightly at the corners. Then the crowd closed in between the two of them and he lost sight of the red-cloaked stranger. "No, wait, Hunk! Lance grabbed Hunk's wrist with his other hand and dug his heels into the dirt as deep as he could, anchoring them.

Hunk just kept on pulling, a pair of grooves in the soil marking their trail. "I don't want you getting recognised int he middle of a crowd, or we'd never get away!"

"No, Hunk! Please! I have to go back!" Lance begged. "You don't understand! I saw a girl!"

"There are plenty of girls in the kingdom, Lance," Hunk sighed, managing to sound bored despite that they were darting through a mass of armed people, keeping their heads down. "You can flirt with whoever you want once you get the... you know!" He smartly avoided mentioning the sword in case they were overheard.

"But she's special!" Despite that the heels of his shoes were just about ruined, he tilted further back on them, and finally they caught on an old root, forcing Hunk to stop to tug him free. "This isn't just any girl! I can see it in her eyes! She's meant to be in my life. And if you don't let me go now, I might never see her again." His voice cracked at the thought.

"You'll find somebody else!" Hunk finally tugged hard enough for Lance to step over the root. He tightened his grip on the prince. "Now let's find your king detector and get you back home safe!"

"No!" Lance forcefully ripped his arm out of the orc's grip. "I have to find her, Hunk! What if... What if she's my _soulmate?"_

That got Hunk to listen. The softie believed in soulmates and destiny more than any other orc- which was saying a lot, since it was an ingrained part of orc society. His eyes crinkled. "Oh, Lance..."

"Please," Lance begged in the softest voice. "Please, give me five minutes. I just need to know her name."

The orc hesitated, his eyes shifting in thought.

"...Please," Lance repeated.

Hunk rolled his eyes, but his face broke into a gentle smile. "Go," he coaxed him.

Lance's face lit up. He gave a single nod in thanks, before turning and running through the crowd, his eyes never resting for a moment too long on anything that wasn't red.

 

_"Hey, wait!"_ Lance doubled over, hands on knees, his breath heaving and sweat trickling down his brow. "G- give... give me a moment," he managed to murmur, half-holding up a hand to halt her in her path.

Not that she could continue if she wanted to, with Lance traffic-jamming the fallen tree that served as a bridge over the narrow but rapid river separating Timbershire from sylvan territory. Yet she dared to precariously lean her weight to the sides, the captivating eyes frantically searching for a path around the living obstacle. The trunk wasn't all that wide and on a normal day Lance wouldn't have dared to test its strength with the weight of two.

The prince forced his breathing to steady faster, resulting in his exhales coming up hoarse- because the stranger looked in the mood to shove him into the water if he didn't make way first, and the crown prince hadn't run the entire road network of Timbershire, _twice,_ to find the walking mystery with the dark blue eyes, nor had he bushwhacked a trail in an attempt to cut her off when she split from her fellow travellers and wandered down the footpath in the direction of the forest, nor had he sprinted onto a hill with a cliff overhanging the river and _leaped across_ daringly, nearly cracking his skull on a rock, just to get soaked and washed downriver as compensation for the name he didn't get to hear.

He was blocking the bridge because something inside him told him he was meant to do it.

Actually, the something inside him was telling him to greet the stranger, but it had come to the point where the one couldn't happen without the other.

Finally recovering enough for his mind to make up complete sentences, he straightened, met those eyes again, and may have spent a moment too long getting lost in them again before holding out a hand to be shaken. "I- I'm Lance." He tried his best to be suave, but couldn't help wincing at the stutter that ruined it. _Why must you betray me, voice?!_

The stranger's brows - thick and dark, like her hair - drew together and turned upwards, as if in confusion - like he was speaking a foreign language - and her heavenly irises darted down to his hand for a moment before returning to meet his gaze.

Realizing he wasn't going to get a handshake out of the ordeal, Lance belatedly played it off as a neck rub. "Uh, yeah... Sorry for bumping into you back there. I wasn't looking where I was going." He shrugged, vision following the flow of the river. "Just got distracted, I guess." _What's wrong with me? I'm usually great with talking to strangers!_ He paged through topics in his mind, trying to find something that might spark interest in the stranger who was getting fidgety, probably even considering turning back to look for whatever crossing Lance had used. His face lit up when an idea struck him. "My friend and I are on an adventure, actually." He leaned in a bit, conspiratorially looked around, then cupped a hand around his mouth and whispered, "Top secret mission." He drew back and crossed his arms, a smug look overtaking his face. "Pretty cool, huh?"

His companion merely rocked on her feet impatiently, looking over her shoulder more than she looked at Lance.

The prince sighed, disappointed. "Nothing interests you, huh? So, uh? Where are you off to? What's the hurry?"

His companion merely rocked on her feet impatiently and looked over her shoulder more than she looked at Lance.

Something she saw behind her seemed to spook her, because she jumped forward like she'd forgotten Lance was in the way, hitting him smack in the chest. He laughed as he steadied both of them by grabbing her wrists. "Woo, you nearly knocked us in with that one." His brow furrowed as the masked beauty tugged fiercely and repeatedly in an attempt to free her arms, all while twisting back as much as she could, her eyes on the orange glow framing the dark silhouette of Timbershire. "No really, what's bugging you?" Lance asked, tugging back in a hopeless attempt to get their attention. "Seriously, though. Where's the fire?"

He tried to estimate where his favourite eyes were looking, and froze when he realized they weren't alone in the village outskirts. Another cloaked figure - this one's a deep mauve which reached their ankles, and their hood hanging so low all but their chin was shaded from the moonlight - was drawing closer to the river- closer to them. Its arms raised slowly, the cloak slipping and bunching up at their elbows, revealing tan and sinewy arms. Its hands - the fingers originally outstretched - suddenly clenched into fists.

And its arms burst into flames.

Lance had to gulp twice before he could get the knob down his throat. Oh," he said, his voice barely a whisper and his throat suddenly dry. "There's the fire."

The flames were mesmerizing, blue-hot and dancing with thin tendrils that reached up to the night sky. Despite that the new stranger's limbs were on fire, it seemed to experience no pain and Lance could see among the flames the black silhouette that revealed its arms were not crumbling into ash. Even its clothes seemed free of scorching, like it was merely a light show they were watching, though despite that the creature stood twenty paces from them, Lance could feel the energy of the fire like a hot breeze on his face, and above the stranger the leaves were curling and browning from dehydration.

Its arms moved again, and for a moment Lance couldn't help but admire the way the fire trailed along, leaving streaks of glowing light in its wake, reminding him of the crystal energy sticks he and Allura had waved around during nighttime festivals when they were children.

Then his mind snapped that the arms were moving to point the hands at him - two burning, glowing hands - and that was not a good place to be.

Yet he couldn't bring himself to move.

His companion, however, broke out of the stupour they'd both been caught in (whether it had been caused by some kind of hypnotism or merely paralyzing fear, Lance didn't know), and in a final attempt to get across the bridge, hunched over and, like a charging bull, rammed her head into Lance's diaphragm. The shock of the cough reflex made Lance's hands tighten instead of release- which she didn't notice until she knocked his legs out from under him, sending Lance, and by extension herself, tumbling off the log and splashing into icy water that knocked Lance's remaining breath out instantly.

Thankfully the narrow stream was deeper than it looked, and neither knocked their heads on the way down- though they were instantly swept with the current, and Lance feared the fate that was inevitable in such a rapid-ridden stream. His lungs ached as every bump plunged him underwater before he could take a breath, and managed only one look upstream at the fire wielder - standing in the middle of the log, watching them, flames extinguished and arms at their sides - before the river washed him around a sharp bend and Timbershire was left behind.

  
  
When his companion hadn't surfaced shortly after himself, Lance had assumed the worst.

However, after ten minutes of navigating around the deadlier rocks, steered only by the flow of the water and the force of pushing against the banks or grabbing roots sticking out the high banks, the channel opened into a much wider, steadier river, outlined by shores instead of banks, and he instantly spied a bundle of dark red shivering beside the water, clutching her cloak tightly around her. She must have fought the stream less than Lance had, opting to wait for a better opportunity rather than tiring herself out by attempting to escape. _Smart,_ Lance thought. _My whole life I've been a swimmer, and I forget the rookie basics in an emergency. Just peachy._ It really was a thorn in his pride that a girl dressed in clothes that suggested she came from the desert and hardly saw more than a puddle's worth of water at a time, was better at him at one of his favourite hobbies.

Mustering up the last bit of strength his fatigued body had to offer after such a long, exhausting fight for his life, he paddled to the shore, the gentle current washing him out beside the stranger.

He pushed himself up into a sitting position, facing the gentle flowing water, and slumped over, arms resting on legs. He cast a weary eye to the side, trying to judge the state of his companion.

Somewhere in the rapids the hood had fallen down, and the bandanna had been pulled down to the neck. With arms folded on knees, making a little nest for a head to rest in, his companion looked battered and exhausted, but was breathing at least, which calmed Lance enough to focus on clearing the water from his own airway- though he didn't let his eyes stray for even a moment.

The stranger was soaked to the bone, clothes clinging to skin, conforming to her body shape. And Lance realized, when his eyes swept over the body, that the flat chest and broad shoulders belonged to a _he,_ not a she. A realization which he might have shown a stronger reaction for, had he not been hacking out water from his lungs at the time. As it was, by the time he'd recovered enough to assemble his thoughts, the discovery had already fit itself snug into his mind.

The blue-black eyes belonged to a male. That didn't change anything.

Right?

_Quiznak,_ he cursed inwardly.

Yes it changed everything. He couldn't have a male soulmate! With Allura unable to have children, it fell to Lance to provide the throne with heirs- something he couldn't do if he tied himself to another man for life. He could always make a similar arrangement as Allura and Shiro had, but he knew firsthand how uncomfortable they'd felt around each other until they finally agreed to stop trying to have children or pretending to be in love. He didn't want that. He wanted to marry one person, for love, and he had to have kids with them, or his entire journey, and Shiro's participation in the tournament, would be for nothing.

_Calm down, Lance,_ the more reasonable voice in his head said. _Nobody said you had to marry him. You just met the guy. You've barely met him, actually._

"So, uh..." Lance sheepishly began, twiddling with his fingers. "I, erm... didn't catch your name back there."

Honestly he didn't know what sort of reaction to expect- they weren't in the sort of situation that called for idle chatter. But he certainly did not expect the cloaked boy to whip up his head, dark eyes glaring daggers into him, and yell, "What do you think you were doing back there?!"

And Lance was dumbstruck by the reaction, and not by the really really nice voice. Not at all... "Me- Whu- WHO WAS THAT GUY?!" he demanded, squaring his vision on the eyes, like his father had taught him to make people crumble in interrogations.

"He was trying to kill me!"

Lance nearly rolled his eyes at that. _I'm not blind. I'm pretty sure we both saw that part._ "Well this river nearly killed me! Thanks for pushing me in, Jerkalot!" They were still sitting in half an inch of water, and he slapped the surface so it splattered across the other boy's shirt and face- not that it made much of a difference, since his clothes hadn't even started drying.

"Me?! You're the one who was blocking the way! And you didn't have to take me down with you!"

"It's called revenge, and it's best served in a cold _(so cold)_ river!" Lance didn't realize they'd been gravitating towards each other throughout the argument, each getting more into the other's space with every turn, until the tips of their noses touched. At the unexpected sensation Lance drew back quickly, and, no longer held captive by the eyes, allowing his vision to wander.

But before he could get a proper look at the rest of the stranger's (apparently male, but decidedly feminine) features, his eyes caught onto something else.

Two somethings else.

Despite being in his field of vision, he didn't once during the argument as much as glance at the boy's marks. But when he finally saw them, his heart clenched in terror, and instantly he was thrown back to the last time he'd seen marks of the same colour- and it hadn't even been in real life.

  
He'd been young, still relatively new in the castle, when among dusty scrolls in the library he'd stumbled upon an old, rolled-up painting that had been removed from its frame in the hall of portraits years before. The colours were faded with age, but he could still tell that the tall man in heavy black armour's marks had once been dark purple, while the frail, cloaked woman with the white hair who stood at his side's marks were vibrant red.

He remembered pulling the painting to Allura's room - the parchment canvas was too heavy for him to lift - and asking her who the people were.

Allura had smiled in the way he now knew meant she was hiding something, and told him it was a portrait of their uncle - their father's traitorous half-brother - and that they weren't allowed to speak of him. When Lance had asked her who the woman was, she'd hushed him, escorted him out the room, and told him to put the painting back where he'd found it and not mention it again.

Only years later did he learn from his tutor that red marks on a human indicated they were a witch, and that Altea had been at war with the witches since Voltrus began his first conquest against them. They were evil and powerful, and kidnapped mortals to drain their rich quintessence supply to fuel their own dark spells. They had to respect for other races - in fact barely had respect for fellow witches - and were uncontrollable and deadly.

Zarkon - the deceased uncle Lance had never known - was an illegitimate child of king Masolus and his favourite, a witch named Galra, who had been raised knowing he would never ascend to the throne, but became power-hungry and, with the assistance of his wife Honerva, had united witch covens in an attempt to overthrow Alfor. Many years later, Honerva and her stepson Lotor had attempted an invasion with less covens but more powerful fighters. Both times the witches had lost, but the damage had been done. Many people had lost their race identity due to quintessence draining, mark disfiguration and even wing amputation.

People like Shiro.

A fear of red-marked humans was stronger in Lance than in the average citizen, because he was a mortal- therefore the most vulnerable and the most valuable for witches, delivering the biggest supply of quintessence for their use.

He was taught that he ever saw marks that looked suspiciously red, he had to run.

And at that moment, that was exactly what he saw. The very fact that the marks that stared back at him were red as blood made Lance's heart want to break through his tunic and abandon him to save itself.

Yet he couldn't bring himself to move.

Because above those red markings were the most beautiful storm-blue eyes he'd seen in his life- vibrant and glittering in the moonlight with the colours of a swirling galaxy. Eyes he couldn't get enough of.

He knew he had to leave, but he didn't want to.

The snap of a twig turned their heads so fast Lance was sure he'd have a crick in his neck for days- if he survived this ordeal, that was. Because the familiar purple cloak had appeared on the opposite riverbank. Though Lance's heartbeat sped up tenfold, he forced himself to not be afraid. After all, there was an impassable barrier between himself and the witch with arms of fire. He had no doubt in his mind as to the cloaked person's race: no other people could tame fire to the point where it would sit on their shoulder like a parrot. At least he was safe from the witch.

Then again, he was also seated beside another witch. One that had not yet made a deliberate move to kill him, but still.

What a mess he'd gotten himself into. No witches for seventeen years and then two in one night.

The red-marked human on the other bank moved a single arm. Lance shuddered, reminded of the flames it had controlled less than an hour before.

But instead the figure drew a sword form a sheath at their back, and Lance nearly burst out laughing. What help was a sword when you couldn't reach your enemy?

Then, because the night was coming to an end but the universe wasn't finished with making it miserable for Lancelot Alfor Maclane, the witch began to walk across the river like it wasn't there.

Like it _really_ wasn't there.

Like it was flat, solid ground and not several fathoms deep water.

Acting as a single man, Lance and the blue-eyed witch screamed and jumped to their feet, ready to run for their lives. Lance had only managed to turn his back before a new voice made him halt.

"Come now, Keith... Did you really think you could hide for long?"

The crown prince craned his neck around and realized that it was the steadily approaching fire wielder who had spoken- and by the expression of the witch at his side, Lance guessed the words were between them, and the closer one didn't like it one bit.

The voice was soft, smooth and alluring, yet undeniably male, and heightened at just the right points, drawing out each syllable so the world seemed to slow down. It almost made Lance feel sleepy. If he hadn't seen the fire for himself earlier, he could have sworn it was a mage chanting a siren's song that he saw before him.

Then again, there was something very off about this witch. Walking over water was also a power exclusive to mages, and the size and whiteness of his flames was odd- his tutor had specifically said that witch fire was redder than normal. So how come his fire seemed to be made of pure quintessence? The type that existed within mortals like Lance?

So many unanswered questions tumbled around in his head as mixed thoughts after that one sentence, none which he could quite get a grip on. Eventually the first coherent sentence he could come up with was, _Do all witches have such nice voices?_

The scraping sound of a sword being drawn made Lance's eyes dart to the smaller, and decidedly less dangerous and likely-to-burst-into-flames, witch. Somewhere among the clothes and rags, he'd concealed a dagger, which he was holding up like he had every intention to use it. The small thing looked quite pathetic next to the curved sword the other was holding.

_Inter-cult territory fights,_ Lance's mind finally supplied him. _The big one wants to kill the little one because he got in his way. This is... good. I can work with this. They'll be too distracted by each other to pay attention to me, so I can just... slip away..._

Even as the thoughts were coming, Lance began to softly back away, trying his best to disappear into the shadows quietly and nonchalantly.

But he'd hardly moved half a yard before the outstretched, large sword of taller witch, who was so shallow at this point that he didn't even need to walk on the surface of the water to keep the toes of his boots dry, glinted in the moonlight as it shifted, pointing at Lance instead.

"Ha! I'm not surprised you've taken to hiding among these weaklings," the taller witch huffed. Despite that Lance sensed the tip of the knife was in direct line with his voice box, the witch's eyes, his sclera glowing slightly yellow under the cover of the hood, didn't stray from the smaller witch - Keith, the other had called him - whose expression was filled with so much terror he might as well have been at knife-point, too. "And I see you've even gotten yourself a mortal companion... I can think of a few people who would be prepared to take him off your hands, if you perhaps want to make a trade."

Lance gulped. It looked like he'd gotten caught up in a fight he couldn't avoid. And with witches, of all people... There was no greater fear for a mortal, and it was becoming Lance's reality. He couldn't bear watch the two witches make a decision about his life, so he squeezed his eyes shut.

"Leave him alone!"

One eye popped open.

At first, he was disappointed to find it wasn't Hunk who had miraculously come rock-rolling in from the forest to rescue the crown prince from being sold to slavery. Then his eyes stretched wide when he realized the smaller witch had moved to stand between him and the taller, hooded one. Putting himself between Lance and the blade.

_This wasn't in the textbooks._

"I have _nothing_ to do with him," the small witch forcefully spoke, his teeth gritting on the emphasized word. "He just ran into me. This fight is between us. Leave him out of it."

The princes' eyes darted back and forth between the witches as the one stood still, poised to fight, while the other seemed to contemplate the words. Then the long sword was lowered slightly. "Very well."

The smaller witch's head craned around to look at Lance. "Go," he said, his eyes - those beautiful eyes - leaving him no room to argue.

And Lance wasn't interested in arguing.

He ran.

* * *

 


	4. The Guy Who Stole Lance's Spotlight

* * *

_Interesting fact:_

_White-marked humans (or_ mortals), _though they have no powers of their own, produce quintessence at the fastest pace, thus are a well of energy that overflows and is passed on to the surroundings passively. As a result, mortals restore environmental quintessence and play a large role in maintaining the planet's energy balance. Their white quintessence is also special in its extreme potency and in how it, like white light, can be refracted into all pure quintessential colours and their blends without dimming in intensity._

* * *

 

Lance had only been sprinting and weaving between the trees, the twigs and leaves whipping at his skin, for ten seconds before the clash of metal alerted him that the fight had begun. Even though he consciously, logically knew they were far behind him, and getting further by the second, he felt that no matter how far he travelled, the sounds remained the same distance behind him. It made him anxious about being followed, and he kept twisting back to check that it really was just him and the trees.

And with his eyes behind him, he was blind to the obstacles ahead. It wasn't long before his lucky dodging ran out and he ran face-fist into a rock.

A really mushy rock.

A rock that could talk.

"Lance! Oh thank the Great Daughter! I found you!"

A rock with arms that could give people tight, crushing hugs.

Lance looked up and realized the rock had a familiar head. _"HUNK?!"_

"Yeah, it's me, buddy!" Hunk laughed in relief, leaning back so he could heave the prince into the air and spin him around.

"Hunk, my man, I'm glad to see you but..." Lance wheezed. "You're kinda crushing my lungs."

"Oop. Sorry." The orc boy gently set him down on his feet and grimaced. "Better?"

The prince rubbed his aching ribs, which were slowly, painfully expanding into their natural shape. "Yeah," he replied hoarsely. "Much."

Hunk glanced down his own body, at the big wet stain Lance had left on his clothes. He looked Lance in the eye and tutted. "You weren't supposed to go swimming, Lance."

Lance huffed indignantly. "I didn't go swimming! I was pushed in!"

Hunk raised a brow. "She wasn't amused by your flirting, I assume?"

"EX-cuse me! I am the greatest flirt in the history of the country. No, _he_ pushed me in because he was being stalked by a crazy witch with mage powers, and I happened to be an innocent victim who got in the way of his escape!"

"What-now?" Hunk stuck a finger in his ear and wriggled it around inside, as if trying to clear a blockage. "Sorry, I didn't get any of what you said right. What's that about mage powers? And you were going after that girl- why were you bothering a guy? Was it her boyfriend? You didn't challenge him, did you? Oh, Lance, please don't tell me you challenged someone to a fight to the death! It's hard enough keeping you alive as it is!"

Lance sighed exasperatedly. "Y'know what, it's a long story." He waved it away with a hand. "And it's not important anyway. I shouldn't have gotten distracted; we're running out of time before sunrise. Which way to Timbershire?"

Hunk turned and pointed behind him.

"So if the Northern border river is there," Lance gestured in the general direction from where they had come, "and Timbershire is there," he pointed the opposite way, "and the sword is East, if we head _that_ way we should be able to find it." He immediately set off marching in the correct direction.

The orc remained still for a moment longer, then quickly fell into step at Lance's side. "What about the girl? Did you get her name?"

Lance raised his shoulders in a half-shrug, not slowing for a moment to answer. "Sort-of?" He shook his head. "It doesn't matter. I was wrong- she's not for me." Whatever he had felt, it must have been a fluke- perhaps even some witch trick to pacify potential attackers. Besides, he'd practically promised his sister he'd marry an avian girl, anyway. It was best he just put the image of the dark indigo-blue eyes behind him.

The sun had started to rise, lighting up the sky in pinks and purples, by the time they stumbled upon a man-made footpath.

"This is great! I know where we are!" Lance excitedly bounced on his feet (a behaviour he shared with Allura- it was highly debated in the castle who had started it and who was merely imitating the other), gripping at Hunk's arm like he was hoping to infect him with his glee. "We use this trail on hunting expeditions all the time! The sword isn't that far!" He broke into a sprint uphill, causing the orc, with his short legs, to fall behind.

"Lance! Lance, wait up!" Hunk insisted. "We shouldn't get split up again!"

The prince kept on running. "But it's right here!"

"Which is exactly why we shouldn't lose each other again! We've come this far- we can't risk ruining it now."

Lance stopped and sighed in submission. "Fine," he grumbled, staying put until he heard his friend's steps directly behind him.

 

The sun was beginning to rise, and it was turning out to be a rather misty morning. If Lance peered through the trees, he could see how they gradually faded into pale greyness the further he looked. It gave off a feeling that they were in a small world empty of life- save for them, the trees, and a fear early birds whistling in the canopy. The trees had a nasty habit of distorting the origin of sounds, the chirping echoing against the wood so it was hard to decide where they came from. He was doubly grateful for Hunk's wisdom that they stayed together- if they'd lost each other in the fog he wouldn't bet a copper on them finding each other again. 

Suddenly the woods and path broke away into a blank grey-whiteness as they entered an open clearing, darkened and framed by the fog, the floor just a few feet ahead of them vanishing like it was the edge of the world. They continued forward, the path clearing ahead while the mist eventually enveloped the trees behind them. They became extremely aware of how the birds had stopped singing- the only sound that of their footsteps, crunching on the dry, fallen leaves, and their cold breath forming their own personal fog in front of their faces.

"...Are we in the right place?" Hunk whispered, not daring to break the silence. He was hunched over again, uncomfortable with not being able to see more than a few feet to either side; fearing what might be hiding under the cover of whiteness. Lance felt a pang of guilt towards his friend- orcs were meant for living in wide open spaces, not for travelling over rivers, through dense forests, or in thick mist, and yet he'd dragged him into all of it. This wasn't turning out to be as fun of an adventure as he'd hoped it would.  
  
He tried to smile reassuringly, but it came out a bit forced. "I have to admit, everything looks a little scarier in the fog. But we are literally right next to the sword- we just need to find it. Tell me if you see anything."

Hunk nodded quickly and squinted through the mist, neglecting watching the visible ground at his feet in exchange for attempting to see things far. His foolishness was punished when he tripped over an arched root. "Oof!" he breathed when he fell onto his large stomach, immediately scrambling back to his feet.

He turned a full three-sixty, hoping to find something new, and realized there was a sudden absence of anything at all. His breathing grew shallower when he realized he was alone and practically blind. "L- Lance?" he called out into nothingness, and he could have sworn his voice echoed like he was in a cave. "Lance, it's not funny!" he insisted when he got no response. "Come on, buddy, don't do this to me!" He stuck his nails into his mouth and began to chew on them fiercely, hoping to distract himself from his fears.

"BOO!"

A sudden force impacted Hunk's back, and though it was too weak to knock the orc over, its sudden appearance almost made him faint. "LANCE! Never do that to me again! I think my heart exploded!"

Lance laughed and patted his back. "Come on, loosen up! We made it."

"How can I loosen up if the security of the kingdom is- wait, made it where?"

"Look here." Lance wrapped a hand over one of Hunk's fingers - his wrists were far too thick to grip - and led him a few paces in a direction (and Hunk, having been spun around a bit looking for Lance, wasn't sure which way it was in respect to the river, a compass, or even their starting point). Despite that Hunk still couldn't see what Lance was looking for, he released the orc like they had arrived.

Then Lance squatted and ran his fingers over the ground. "See?"

"Huh?" Hunk joined him low on the dirt - bare of leaves, he noticed - and saw a nail-wide groove that looked like it was carved from stone. He followed Lance's fingers and noticed the groove curved and twisted to form a rune. Unfortunately neither of them knew its meaning. "What is this?"

"There are eight of them around the sword," Lance explained. His fingers traced the straight groove that exited the rune. "According to the legend they weren't carved by man- once the sword was planted the runes magically formed around it. They're supposed to tell you about its powers. If we follow the line-"

"Hey, what's that sound?" Hunk suddenly interrupted Lance's vocalised thoughts. "It sounds like a swordfight."

Lance's brow furrowed and he stretched himself up, straining his ears and willing his breath to still. Hunk seemed to have caught on, and clamped his own mouth closed, cheeks bulging.

For several seconds, Lance heard nothing but the thudding of his own heart in his ears, and just as he made up his mind to resume breathing, he heard it.

Metal clashing against metal.

It nearly made him jump out his skin, because though the sound was faded with distance it felt like it was made right beside his ear. His eyes stretched- that was a little too familiar for comfort. Lance met worried eyes with Hunk.

"Luxide," Hunk murmured, recalling knowledge he'd picked up from his miner and smithy relatives. "No other metal makes a pure echo like that. But it doesn't make sense- we only use luxide for communication technology nowadays. There are way better alloys for weapons. As far as I know, the last Altean luxide blades got melted down after the Uprisings."

"That's because those aren't Altean swords," Lance instinctively knew. "I didn't think they'd even get to here," he added softly.

"What?"

"Two witches I saw-"

"WITCHES?!"

"-earlier, while we were separated. They're fighting each other for territory. Or something." Another clash. It sent chills up Lance's spine. "I know it's hard to tell, but I have a feeling they're coming this way."

Hunk jumped up from his crouch. "Then we'd better get out of here!"

Lance dodged when Hunk tried to grab his arm. "No! We came all the this way and we are not going to give up at the last moment!"

"We can come back later once they have cleared off! The sword hasn't moved for a thousand years; it's not going anywhere if we wait another five minutes. Now hurry up! Let's go find cover!"

"Heck no! There are _witches_ in our territory!"

"All the more reason for us to leave!"

"No!" Lance ripped his arm free the moment Hunk managed to wrap a hand around it. "It's 'all the more reason' to get that sword now and show them who's boss!" Lance turned to the opposite direction of the rune, and peered into the mist. He remembered the sword being about ten paces from the rune- just out of sight. He took a step forward.

And suddenly the groove began to glow.

He looked back, and realized that the rune had flooded itself with a bright red light, like lava, which was slowly climbing along the straight groove, lighting up a path through the mist. He grinned at himself, straightening his shoulders in a burst of confidence and pride. _This was meant for me._

To his left and right, he could see the mist dissipating where more runes lit up, red-hot, and began spilling light inwards. A few more paces and the eight grooves touched the edges of a rock at the heart of the clearing.

And buried in the rock was the sword from the legends.

It was a longsword, with a flat, thin blade with its own two red glowing grooves along the middle, the energy seemingly leaking into it from where the light shattered into cracks over the stone. Dotting its sharp edges were curved, sharp black lines like thorns, making the sword look menacingly dangerous.

One of its oddest characteristics was its hilt- instead of having a rod extend from the sword to hold, like traditional swords, a white-and-black metal half-moon shape split off from the blade, a bar connecting the ends, serving as a handhold. A triangular cyan Balmeran crystal glowed where the hilt met the blade, in sharp contrast to the red light that bathed most of the clearing.

The clearing which was no longer blanketed in mist

He heard blades meeting again, but this time there was no blaming the seeming proximity on the properties of a rare metal.

The instant he saw the two capes, purple and red, just visible in the light cast by the furthest rune, he dropped to his chest, heart thudding against the oddly hot stone floor of the clearing. He was hidden from the duelers by the stone, but not for long, based on how far the fighting witches travelled between strikes

Slowly, careful not to stir any rocks or dried leaves or scrape the metal of his boots against the stone, Lance leopard-crawled towards the sword. If he could only get his hands on it...

Less than three paces from the sword, Lance was forced to stop when a dagger suddenly fell in front of his face, its sharp point missing his nose by an inch.

The purple-cloaked witch had managed to close up on the other, backing him him to the rock. "What a perfect little metaphor, isn't it?" the enchanting voice cooed, the curved sword almost tickling his opponent's neck.

The red witch's back arched over the rock to avoid the sharp blade, his hands scrambling behind him, probably searching for his lost dagger.

Lance almost mirrored him as he considered whether the risk was worthwhile or not. He was within reach of two swords- one could solve all his problems, and the other could end his life.

"You, keeping me from reaching my goal," the purple witch elaborated, and immediately Lance's heartbeat quadrupled. So the witches really _were_ after Voltron! He made up his mind- even if it cost everything, he was going to do everything in his ability to ensure that the witches didn't get a chance to use their magic trickery and gain power over the sword. "And now, Keith..." The witch's voice lowered into a snarl as he raised his luxide sword, the metal shining red in the light. "...You will learn what comes to those who stand in my way-"

Seizing the opportunity the moment the only remaining knife in the fight was occupied, he lunged backward to grasp for the sword. He swore he felt the hilt under his fingers, until it suddenly moved and his fingers grasped the moving blade instead. With a smooth swipe, like he was made of butter, his palm sliced open. He cried out in pain and fell to the ground, clutching his bleeding hand to his chest.

Biting back the pain, he could do nothing but watch as the legendary sword, free from its sheath, swung the other way, crashing into the purple witch's before he could deliver the fatal blow.

Both's eyes widened comically at the unexpected sword. Their arms trembled under each other's force for a few moments, then went still, like a double surrender.

But Lance cared very little about the outcome of their fight.

What matters was that the red witch had pulled out the sword.

The red witch had taken Voltron from him.

And Lance was unarmed and injured, on the ground, a fatal distance from a swordfight.

He scrambled back into the cover of the mist, his uninjured hand catching something cold and solid in its grasp and dragging it along. He moved back until the fighters were starting to become obscured by the fog, and then some, until he felt safe under the cover of a leafy bush.

From his pathetic excuse of a cover, the dethroned prince watched the purple witch take a big step back, sheathing his sword.

The other's head was turned to stare at the weapon laid across his hands instead, barely noticing that his opponent had ceased the fight.

With a whirl of a purple cape, the words, "We will meet again," echoed over the trees, before the larger witch vanished- whether into the mist or by some strange magic, Lance wasn't sure.

The red witch slowly straightened up, his sword arm hanging limply, the tip of the blade digging into the ground beside him. His eyes searched the clearing, and Lance forced himself not to flinch when the eyes passed over him momentarily, reminding himself that he was under cover. The raven-haired boy looked back down at the sword, turning it slowly to admire the blade from all sides, though his expression remained blank in the face of his majestic spoils.

Then he threw it over his sword like it was a potato sack and not a legendary sword that was the key to ruling all of Altea, and headed into the mist, the opposite direction as the purple witch. He passed so close by Lance that he held his breath.

Everything was deathly quiet for a moment, the last audible sounds of the moving witch disappearing in the distance.

Then the bush he was hiding in rustled.

Lance nearly gave a bloody slap at the face of the intruder, but his wrist was caught on mid-air. "Oh, by Balmera!" Hunk loudly cried out, drawing the injured limb close to his face. "O-ohhhh, this looks bad. This is bad. Can this be fixed? Are you gonna lose your hand? Please don't lose your hand!"

"It's fine, Hunk!" Lance bit, pushing the fussy orc away and twisting his arm free. "I've just got to find a hare to help me and it'll be fine. There's a warren nearby- come on." He lugged the big fellow onto his feet, dragging him out the bushes. Suddenly Lance realized that his uninjured hand was still holding the object he'd escaped with. He inspected it for a moment, realizing it was the red witch's luxide dagger. Considering the possibility of tracking the witch through it, he swiftly pocketed it in his quiver.

"And? What's the plan after that?" Hunk asked, his shoulders hunched up so far his head almost disappeared under them. "A witch took the sword. Do we- do we have to go after them? Do we tell somebody? Who can we tell who won't get me fired?"

" _Hunk. Stop._ " Only after seeing his friend's reaction did he realize how harshly he'd said that, and his heart turned into a lump of ice. He sighed in frustration- at himself, at their predicament, at the universe for always tricking him into thinking that something good was about to happen, only to drop a bomb on it all, ruining everything. He'd had the sword taken away from him from quite literally under his nose when he was so, _so_ close. "I'm sorry, buddy. I just- I really just need to not think about this right now." He spied a familiar tree with the split trunk, and veered left, marching like he knew exactly where he was going even though it was just a rough estimate.

After half a minute of silence - outside Hunk's panicked breathing into his palms, trying to quell his anxiety - they arrived at the footsteps of a warren.

Since discovering that the rabbits that lived there were practically tame, he and his entire hunting crew had made a pact never to hunt them, as a gift to the ladies of the castle so they could have some place to go and cuddle with cute, fluffy animals. It was also a rather interesting warren for having three races in one- with white-marked rabbits and blue-marked hares living among the more plentiful green-marked bunny population like they weren't different subspecies.

Lance was in luck, for once, as a hare was nibbling at short blades of grass that had managed to break through the trampled bare soil around the warren. Lance crouched down on his knees, ever-so-slowly reaching his injured hand forward.

The hare perked up, sitting back on its haunches slightly to observe Lance, before it settled back down into a crouch and sniffed at his palm, whiskers tickling his skin. Its tiny tongue then began to lick at the edges of his wound, its healing powers sealing it over.

The prince drew back his hand, staring at his mostly-healed palm. Anyone who hadn't known any better would have guessed it was just a paper cut. He smirked, showing it off to Hunk. "Uh-huh?" he taunted, pointing at it. Ah, yes. He was a genius.

"Well I'm glad to hear that I don't have to worry about amputations or infections or vampire bats," Hunk rambled, his hands twisting around each other as he twirled his wrists. "But I don't think rabbit licks are going to solve the national crisis we've got here."

"You're right- we need bigger and better licks," Lance agreed, getting back up on his feet. "The licks of someone powerful and experienced, who's fought witches before in more than one war. Who's been around for long enough to know everything there is to know about Voltron. Who we can always trust to be faithful to the throne of Altea. Who also has a fantastic sense of humour and can make me feel better after the disaster that was today."

Hunk groaned. "Don't tell me we're going to visit the crazy wizard."

Lance grinned evilly. "We're going to visit the crazy wizard."

* * *

 

 


	5. The Very Unreliable Merlin Ripoff

* * *

_Interesting fact:_

_Blue-marked humans_ _(or_ mages) _have a very limited capacity for internal quintessence. When using their powers, they draw quintessence from the environment rather from within them, and pass it on immediately- restoring their surroundings with all the quintessence they took. They are at their strongest when fighting in or near water, which acts as a sponge for natural blue quintessence. To increase the potency of their magic, mages often wear Balmeran crystals - the only known non-living generators of pure quintessence - to draw energy from._

* * *

 

It was probably the oddest building in the kingdom. And also the most structurally unsound- despite having lasted since the beginning of Altea.

Coran's home was situated on a tiny island, the River of Heart knotted around it, which meant it was set on the border between sylvan and Altean territory. The round stone walls of his tower took up most of the land area- at one side even leaning over the bank enough that it required a support foundation, with planks that were worn and rotten thin from the water's flow.

To make up for the lack of ground surface it covered, the building had an impressive altitude, rivalling even the ancient trees of the forest. Like a pinhead, a larger room sat on top of the thin neck of the tower, capped with a pointy scallop-tiled spire that only served to make the building look even larger.

Even odder, the entire thing was crooked- reason for most Alteans to stay far, far away from the tower, convinced that they would be the unfortunate soul it would collapse on top of. A bend in the centre of the neck would have made the head lean precariously, were it not for a second bend further up. The spire was oblong and zigzagged, looking like a crumpled wizard's hat, making the overall building appear even more uneven. As time passed, some stone bricks had crumpled and were missing from the structure, creating a gap-toothed effect, but other than that little had changed since its initial construction.

A small drawbridge was always lowered over the river, however the door itself was locked and rarely opened, since mages had more productive methods of transportation than climbing an unstable spiral staircase.

Lance cupped his hands around his mouth, leaning back to angle his face towards the window. "Hey Coran! Are you in there?" he yelled.

There was a moment of silence in which Lance's heart dropped, worried they'd gone an hour out of the way of their journey for nothing.

Then he heard the tell-tale sound of shattering porcelain. Then a bookcase falling over, something metal rolling, and a shrieking cat. "What's the password?" a jolly voice called afterwards.

Lance groaned. "Come on, Coran! You know it's me. Prince Lance, with Hunk the kitchen boy!"

A small head stuck out the window, blurry from the distance. "Hunk? Is that the boy who makes those scrumptious egg rolls?"

Lance nodded fiercely, ecstatic that they were finally getting somewhere. "Yes! Yes, that's him! Zap us up!"

"Oh, I'm afraid not, my boy. Not until I hear the password. Security measures, you understand. Can't go carelessly making exceptions for every second fellow who passes through these parts."

"I'm not gonna say your stupid password!" Lance growled.

Two arms appeared in the window, too, comfortably leaning on the sill. "What a shame! Guess we will just have to carry on talking through this window."

Lance sighed in surrender. His voice was already going hoarse from all the yelling to not only project his voice to the tower, but also let the partially deaf wizard hear him. He tucked his arms into his chest, grumbling, "Coran, Coran, the gorgeous man."

"What's that?" One arm shifted to cup a hand over the man's ear. "I can hardly hear you! Speak up! And while you're at it, add a little more... razzle-dazzle to it!"

"Grrrruuuueeaughhhh..." Lance groaned, clutching his face into his hands. Then he quickly dropped them back to his sides, deleting his minor mental breakdown, and cleared his throat. "Coran! Coran! The gorgeous man!"

"Ah, there it is!" the man at the top of the tower said, standing up. "Welcome, company!" And he promptly disappeared from sight.

They waited a few breaths for the magic to happen. Hunk's hands were clenching and unclenching, Lance noticed. The orc wasn't too fond of sudden magic, like zaps or fireworks, but rather in the passive, gradual effects of quintessence flowing from one source to another, as his own kind was able to work with.

Eventually, Lance lost patience. "Are you gonna bring us up or not?" he called up to the tower.

"Hmm, well, you see..." Lance could feel the bad news coming. The wizard's head popped out the window again. "My teludav is preoccupied at the moment!" Teludavs were tables made of a solid sheet of scaultrite crystal, with special runes carved into them. They were a placeholder for objects or people to be teleported to. Teleportation spells were unstable, and without properly prepared scaultrite to locate to, there was a large chance the pieces of the object - or person - could be scattered throughout the general vicinity. Which was not a pretty picture. "I've been playing long-distance chess with an old friend from the archive temple, and I'm expecting the board to be delivered at any moment. If I were to use it on someone else at the same time he decides to send it, you might exchange some limbs with the chess pieces! That would be a dowsy."

Lance stared up at the wizard, while the wizard stared down at Lance. Both had an idea of what the other had to do. Neither of them were going to like the idea.

"How about you just let yourself in manually?" the wizard suggested, waving his hand at them dismissively. "You know- the way the... non-mages do it."

"Coran!" Lance yelled, exasperated. But the wizard disappeared from the window. "Coran, no, there's like two hundred stairs! It'll take forever! This is urgent!"

"So is this delivery!" Coran yelled back without returning to their sight. "I'm pretty sure I can put him into checkmate with one move and I'd rather not you fuse with my grandfather's crystal chess set! It's an antique!"

"You're over six hundred years old!" Lance reminded him. "Your diapers are now antiques!"

"I thought you said it was urgent!" Coran called. "You could have been halfway up by now if you didn't occupy yourself with this pointless screaming fest!"

Lance grumbled as he stomped up to a thick-trunked tree with a large hollow, Hunk worryingly shadowing him. "Hey, buddy... You might not want to!"

"Ow!" Lance cried out, snatching his hand back to inspect the damage. There was a triangular gash on the tip of his index finger, blood already welling underneath the skin. He tensed as he pressed his thumb over the wound, once again trying to keep from bleeding out through his hand.

"Sorry, buddy. If I'd known you were going to do that, I would have mentioned the owl before you... well, did that," Hunk shrugged.

"How did you see that and I didn't?" Lance demanded, sticking his finger into the crook of his other arm to apply pressure from both sides.

"Orcish night vision?" Oh. Right. Orcs originally lived in giant caves, and were highly desired miners since they didn't need to bring flames that could ignite underground gases into the tunnels. "Let me try." Hunk then turned the opposite way, puzzling Lance, whose eyes followed his friend around as he kept wandering aimlessly, occasionally stooping down to pick something up. He returned to Lance's side in half a minute, one hand cupping a pile of small stones. He pinched one, balanced it on a nail, and flicked it into the hollow.

There was no reaction from the owl.

Lance rolled his neck in frustration. "It's not going to work, Hunk!"

"Give it a few more tries." And Hunk did flick stones in a few more tries. And it only took a few more tries before even Lance could see the owl ruffling its feathers as it begrudgingly woke up, but still didn't budge.

"Now what?" Lance asked.

"Now this!" Hunk gave the tree trunk a good kick, which despite the tree's massive size managed to shake it all the way to the leaves and leave a hefty dent in the bark.

The owl, now thoroughly tee'd off, hooted and started flapping its wings. Lance stood back from the hollow, because he'd rather not have his nose meet the same fate as his finger, and the broad bird, with a creamy belly and rust red flight feathers, and two red marks under its eyes, swooped out the hollow and disappeared somewhere between the higher branches. "No wonder it bit me!" Lance scowled. "Fire animals are always so much more temperamental!"

"How's your finger?"

Lance withdrew it from his elbow and turned it around a few times. "Better. Thanks."

Hunk looked towards the nest. "You want to try it again, or should I? I mean, there might be chicks."

"You know I'm brave and selfless and all, but this bad experience makes me want not to..."

"That's okay, buddy. I'll do you this favour." Hunk stuck his blocky head and an arm into the hollow. "So, erm... What exactly am I looking for?" he called, voice muffled and echoing.

"A key."

"Well sorry buddy but I don't see any key in- oh look, a key!" Hunk backed out the trunk too fast, knocking his head against the frame, but it hardly seemed to phase him as he held the key out at Lance, beaming. "Sorry; was under a bunch of leaves."

It was copper, but coated in moss green rust from age; not the shiny thing a bird would snag for their nest. And that was likely why the owl made a nest on top of it rather than taking it out- it probably didn't even realize it was in there.

Just like the tower, it had a couple of bends in the stem, but the part that would fit into the lock was still intact, and the thin thing thankfully didn't snap when Lance turned it in the keyhole.

"Are you sure about this guy, though?" Hunk asked as he followed Lance into the tower. The spiral staircase started almost one step away from the door.

"I gotta admit," Lance said, as he started ascending the steps, "he's apples-and-bananas, but he's super smart with a brain like a library. And he's the only person outside my family that I'd trust not to turn on us in a moment. Excluding you, of course," he added over his shoulder.

 

There were actually one hundred and eighty-four steps, Lance counted.

His lungs had left his body long before he had reached the top of the tower, as he'd insisted on not taking any breaks. However, by the fact that he could nearly always hear the regular break-taker Hunk's breath less than one flight below him, he wondered whether this might not have been one of the cases where one should take breaks from woodcutting to sharpen the axe.

And finally, Lance's head stuck out the open trapdoor on the floor of the only true room within the wizard's tower.

It was the type of room that was a metaphor for its inhabitant's brain- some books arranged neatly in cases along the walls, while others, open, closed or stacked, were scattered across the floors. There were many tables of varying styles and sizes hosting cauldrons and bottles and contraptions and all other sorts of odds and ends, some glowing, some smoking, that Lance would have no doubt asked questions about had he not been in a hurry. Admittedly, whatever was stewing in the largest cast iron cauldron with a magenta hue was sparking his curiosity, however he forced himself to focus on the task at hand.

He spied the teludav sheet between two bookcases, and the empty window seat, and everything in between, but there was no wizard in sight. But there were such large stacks of oddities that he had to wander around to be sure he'd peeked over everything.

And, as he'd suspected, he'd found the wizard crouched on the ground, bottoms-up, nose practically touching the pages of an open book on the floor in an effort to read it.

Lance awkwardly coughed into his hand to get the man's attention.

"Oh!" The wizard popped up like a jack-in-the-box, suddenly an image of tidy sophistication in his formal coat and gloved hands folded behind him. He had a voluminous handlebar moustache and a head of bright orange hair, despite his old age. Allura had once mentioned it had been caused by one of her childhood spells that had gone wrong, that no-one was able to remove since she had made it up on her own without remembering what she'd done, and that Coran's natural hair was white like hers. But he wore the colour with pride, claiming it was an honour to represent the princess' prowess in magic. "So! Prince Lancelot. What brings you here this fine morning? All's well at the castle, I hope? I am ashamed to say it's been quite some time since I last popped in for a visit."

"This isn't a friendly visit, Coran. Voltron's been released!"

"Oh?" he said, like Lance had commented on the weather. The large grandfather clock ticked a few times before Coran fully understood the meaning behind Lance's words. "Oh. Oh! Why, congratulations, Lance! That means you are the destined king, Keeper of the Sword, overseer of all of Altea, who is to start a bright new golden age-"

"Not me!" Lance snapped, shutting the man up. "That's what I came to talk to you about. The sword got taken by-"

Heavy wheezing behind him made Lance's head turn, and he saw Hunk crawling up the last few stairs, body shaking, then flopping down on his back in exhaustion. "Wow. I... whew... can't believe I made it!"

"Oh, is that him?" Coran asked, hurrying up to Hunk. His eyes gave him a quick up-down, before he reached down to grab Hunk's limp arm and shake it. "Congratulations, my boy! You are the destined king, Keeper of the Sword, overseer of all of Altea, who is to start a-"

"Nononono, it's not Hunk either," Lance insisted, breaking the connection between the two hands by force.

"Whuzzat about being the overseer for the kingdom?" Hunk asked from the floor, dazed, eyes glassy. "Maybe I could start with something smaller, y'know? I wouldn't mind being overseer of the castle kitchens. Can I- can I have that job instead? Lance, how about we share? I get the castle kitchens, you get the rest of the kingdom. And the food market- I get the food market, too. That's a good deal, right? Sounds fair to me."

Coran's brow furrowed, making him look even older. He looked at Lance questioningly. "But then... Who is the new Keeper of the Sword?"

"Okay, long story short," Lance began. "I wanted to prove I was meant to be king by drawing Voltron from the stone. Then when we got close, the runes and the sword started glowing red, and two fighters showed up. One of them was a witch. And I don't know, I think me being there loosened the sword or something, because he pulled it out like it was buried in butter, chased away the other guy, and then just walked away with Voltron!"

Coran took a few seconds to process. "...You are saying... a witch took the Red Sword?"

"Yes. A witch took Voltron."

Suddenly, Coran burst into offensive laughter. A few drops of spit landed on Lance's face, and he cringed even after he wiped it off on his sleeve.

"What?" Lance demanded, throwing his arms out. "What's so funny?! It's not a joke, Coran! Somewhere out there is a witch who thinks he's the destined king of Altea and is taking our greatest weapon to the Hinterlands! We can't let the witches have Voltron!"

"Oh, but they don't have it!" Coran replied, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye.

It was Lance's turn to frown. "What do you mean? The witch took Voltron-"

"The witch took the Red Sword, yes, but not Voltron."

Lance felt his brain fall flat. He was beginning to feel he did not know enough about the conversation to be a part of it. "It's the same sword, isn't it? _Isn't it?!_ We are talking about the same sword, right? Voltrus' legendary weapon, forged from materials from every corner of the kingdom, with which he drove the witches from our lands into-"

"It's the same sword... somewhat," Coran said, which was no help at all to Lance.

"What do you mean, _somewhat?_ It either is or it isn't!" Lance looked down at Hunk for backup, but the orcish teen had fallen into an impromptu nap, it seemed, and was mumbling something about crepes.

"Ah, you see, over the years the legend has been... simplified," Coran carefully said. "To our boon, actually. Only the king, his first heir and his advisors know the true tale. I'm surprised Alfor didn't tell you when you officially earned Allura's birthright. But I suppose, seeing as how long the Red Sword just sat there, he felt the legend was pointless to pass on." He twirled his moustache. "The Red Sword that was buried in a stone outside Timbershire is in every fable of the tale said to be Voltron itself, when it is actually merely a part of it. A fifth, to be precise. Five magical swords, one for each element - with the exception of neutrality - make Voltron when they are joined together."

Lance shook his head in confusion, blinking his eyes rapidly like that would unscramble the thoughts in his brain. "But... How did Voltrus hold five swords?"

"He didn't!" Coran piped. "When placed together on the Forge of Legends, they merge into one powerful, ultimate sword, which gives a single bearer the power of a hundred armies. If anyone unfit were to pick up Voltron by the hilt, it would simply split into its five parts again."

"Then why are we being told the Red Sword is Voltron?" Lance demanded. "Don't we want to find the new Keeper if he's out there? Why are we lying to the people?"

"Oh, the Red Sword serves the exact same purpose as Voltron itself, when it comes to testing for an heir- while avoiding letting the power get into the wrong hands. At least it did, in an Altea with no witches."

Lance's shoulders slumped as he officially gave up on trying to understand the pieces of the puzzle he'd been handed. "You're not making any sense."

"Yes, I realize there is a lot to take in. It is difficult to coordinate the information, especially after being told otherwise for so long." He patted Lance's shoulder in what was supposed to be a comforting way, Lance guessed. "It was discovered that sometimes people who could not wield Voltron, could wield one of the other swords. Controlling Voltron requires a special quintessential bond with every sword and every element that happens only once in many, many generations- and since it is so rare, one could say that fate selected this person specially for the purpose. However, the raw elemental quintessence of the five swords is more commonly found in a normal human. I should say one in every thirty pure-marked people of a particular race can control a sword of matching quintessence. In old age, Voltrus recruited many of these so-called Paladins of Voltron to assist him. But only Voltron's Keeper can control more than one, and every sword."

Lance nodded slowly. "...And we've been using the Red Sword to look for a Swordkeeper because there aren't supposed to be witches in Altea, which means anyone who pulled the sword out is automatically the Keeper."

"Precisely!" Coran touched the tip of his own nose. "But as luck would have it, one of the very few witches who have ever managed to cross the border alive and undetected was capable of taking it."

"So if we can take it from the witch and put it back in the rock, and I pull it out, that means I'm the Swordkeeper, right?"

"Oh, no." Coran shook his head. "The final part of the fable still stands- a Paladin has to bury the stone in their dying breath for it to seal in the ground, awaiting the next Paladin. If you got it back, the Red Sword alone would be practically useless to any Keeper until it is buried the correct way again- since it was withdrawn by a Paladin, not the Keeper, the Keeper can only use its powers when in Voltron form, whereas all Paladins of the element can still use the sword, regardless of whether they were the one to draw it out or not. However, in reverse, if the Keeper removes it, both the Keeper and the appropriate Paladins can use its powers in the sword's simplest form. The Red Sword never had a Paladin, thus it was Voltrus himself who buried it outside Timbershire, hence the legend."

Lance hummed in thought. "...We could always make the witch stick it in the ground and stab him when-"

"Lance," Coran lectured. "Killing unnecessarily is not the Altean way."

"I know, I know," Lance grumbled. "But how am I going to prove myself to be the true king, then?"

"You could give a hand at one of the other swords," Coran suggested. "Since you are a mortal, any would do."

"Where are they?" Lance asked, knocked breathless, heart thundering. _I still have a chance I still have a chance I still have a chance..._

"Buried in stones strategically in different regions of the kingdom, to keep from them all being stolen at once," Coran replied. "This was meant to give us the chance to plan to defend the remaining swords if one should be taken by an unfriendly force. As long as the witches do not have every single sword, they cannot form Voltron. But I hope you would not take it to offense if I ask you to not take more than you need to. We have no need for Voltron at this time, and more free swords just means more swords to guard. The witches at this point hold the power to form Voltron- during the cult uprisings they'd seized border land that contained the Forge of Legends. Within their stone encasements, the swords are the safest they can be."

"Question," Lance voiced. "If only the true king can Voltron, why do we need to keep the swords from the witches in the first place?"

Coran sighed. Then he placed two steady hands on Lance's shoulders. "As much as we would like to believe fate and the gods will always pick the best Keeper, that is simply another part of the fable. But the people are so invested in such a belief that they would bow to any man who could hold the sword- and if it does turn out to be a witch, we may face more trouble than we already do. Most likely the one who took the Red Sword is just a potential Paladin, but there is a small chance he truly is the Keeper, in which case he is dangerous for the kingdom's safety. Also, the witches have proven to be able to drain quintessence from any Voltron sword. And with the Red Sword just being in the witches' hands- we know they can use it against us, Keeper or no Keeper."

"We'll get it back, Coran," Lance vowed. "Right, Hunk?" He tapped his friend's head with his boot. Thankfully this time around, it did not take much to rouse him.

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Hunk murmured, before turning onto his side. Then suddenly he shot up. "Whoa whoa wait! What did I promise? I make really bad promises when I'm half awake- please tell me I didn't make a pinky swear!"

"You said you'll help me get the sword back," Lance explained. "We'll cut the witch off before he reaches the border, and take the sword before he even knows we were there!"

Hunk's face fell. "Oh, greaaat..." he grumbled. "How are we going to find him, anyway? I mean, we split up with him miles back and he's probably halfway to the Hinterlands as we speak."

Coran perked up. "It just so happens that I have a map for that very purpose!" Coran scrambled to a bookcase, carelessly throwing books and bottles onto the ground. A few things shattered and a tree started growing out of the cracks in the stone. "Voila!" With a flourish, the wizard whipped the scroll open and laid it out across a few book stacks, revealing a map of the known world.

It was the most incredible map Lance had ever seen, making him itch to tuck it away somewhere in his library. Not only did it have the vibrancy of mage-woven illustrations, but the sea and the clouds and the trees swayed, and when he looked at a picture of a town he could swear he heard the people within it chatting and calling and yelling at one another.

Hunk crawled up to the map, his head just high enough to see over the stacks of books. "What are those weird glowy dot thingies?" he asked, referring to what looked like fireflies trapped in the paper, except the light was consistent, and five different colours.

Coran slapped his back. "Those 'weird glowy dot thingies,' my kitchen virtuoso friend, are the locations of the swords!"

"Swordzzz?" Hunk echoed.

"Oh, yeah, you slept through that," Lance remembered. "To put it short, there are five coloured swords that formed Voltron, a lot of people can pull out swords of their own colour but only the Keeper can pull out swords of a different colour, and we need to get the Red Sword back and I need to pull out any other sword to prove I'm the Keeper. Hey, check- there's a black dot on the castle!"

"yes, the Black Sword was buried in the Hinterlands until the War of Mount Doom, when Zarkon managed to drain enough of its magic over the span of his life to change his quintessinal fingerprint to match it, as Haggar had done before him with red quitessence. This allowed him to withdraw it and use it for his own sinister purposes. After his defeat the sword was brought to the Castle of Altea for safekeeping."

"So the Black Sword's out of the option for me," Lance decided, "since it's not even buried."

"I'm afraid so."

"Hey, the red dot's moving!" Hunk exclaimed, thick finger squashing its place on the map.

"That's because it's with the witch." Lance pushed Hunk's hand away to get a better view. "Hey, he's taking the Winding Road! If we take a shortcut through the forest, we can get to the Border Crossroad long before he does. Even better- if we plan right, we could get the Green Sword before we even have to face him! Look; it's near a place called Rune Falls."

"But the people think the Red Sword is Voltron," Hunk reminded him. "If you want to prove it to them, you need to show them the real deal- not another sword you say means the same."

"OR once we get the Red Sword back, we could pass it off as Voltron, as we've always done," Lance decided.

"...That could work."

* * *

 


	6. The Forest They Probably Shouldn't Have Gone Into

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. I'm not dead. Hopefully I can start doing regular updates for this fic. I'm aiming for once a week. What day of the week do you guys prefer your updates?
> 
> I sincerely apologize to all the Hunk stans for this chapter. At this point everyone's still idiots trying to figure out how to be heroic leads in a story. He will get redemption... just not right now.

* * *

 

_Interesting fact:_

_Green-marked humans (or_ elves _) are divided into two very different societies. The more traditional sylphs believe in following a strict code of elegant simplicity, thoughtful meditation and taking the moral (and physical) high ground. Gremlins, on the other hand, are technologically curious, opportunistic thieves with a tendency of hoarding. Getting a gremlin to give up even the most insignificant belonging, has been compared to pulling a_ kzerrlisquilkel's _tooth._

* * *

A near-perfect arch of stone framed the entrance to the forest, its grey and jagged appearance sticking out sharply against the backdrop of rich greens and soft browns. It looked almost as if it had been brought there from someplace else, though it was rooted as firmly in the soil as the trees were.

The gateway to the Forest of Tricks had always seemed ominous to Lance, reminding him of stories about portals that swallowed people up, the victims never to be seen again. The border forest's reputation didn't help much, either. It was famous for its nasty little habit to reduce the number in a passing party by at least one each time.

Which was why Lance always came down with a sudden case of rider's calves whenever their party drew near it.

It worked every time. And he wasn't even that convincing of an actor. But he supposed everyone else had always been as eager for an excuse to turn around and head back to the castle as he'd been.

Lance's hand traced the carvings in the stone, as he recited the words more from memory than by reading.

_"'Pass ye through, and stray not off the trail,_

_disturbing naught, then shall ye goal prevail._

_But do ye as much as set a foot astray,_

_then be ye lost for one eternal day._

_But be ye by the woods' people forgive'd,_

_then, and only then, can ye life be live'd.'"_

Hunk had an audible reaction- a little squeak, pitched enough to make some nearby squirrels scatter. His shoulders were pulled up to his ears again. "That- that doesn't sound good. I mean it's good for the creepy forest, setting its boundaries and all, but for us? This sounds like something that could kill us. For real this time."

Lance tried to offer a comforting grin, but it sat stiff on his cheeks, feeling more like a grimace. He hoped Hunk was too busy panicking to notice. "Don't worry, big guy. You're with the Lancemaster," he talked up, patting the orc's bicep- mainly because he couldn't reach his shoulder. He leaned in with one hand cupping his mouth, tugging the orc down by the sleeve, because from experience he knew whispering made things sound more legit. "And I happen to have a trick up my sleeve. A reputable source whose name I'm not allowed to mention for..." he made sure to shift his eyes as if checking for eavesdroppers, "... _legal_ purposes, suggested the use of a decoy. Someone who will go missing instead of us."

It had been a poacher selling parrots, who had probably just been buffing his wares to get an undercover Lance to buy, but still. It was a good point.

"Alright. Let's pretend for a moment this 'reputable source,'" Hunk made sure to punctuate his doubt with air quotes, "is on the level. Where are we going to find a decoy who's not going to die because we let them get trapped in a creepy forest?"

High-pitched chittering at their feet drew their attention. One of the squirrels had wandered back down the trees again, and was testing Lance's metal aglets for edibility.

Lance smirked at Hunk as he picked the creature up by the scruff of its neck. "Right here!" He reached into his pocket for a half-eaten bit of hardtack Coran had offered them along with all the other supplies that were now weighing down their knapsacks. Well, _half-eaten_ was giving it more credit than it was due. Lance had taken one bite before giving up. He wasn't quite sure why he had stuck one in each pocket- maybe just to appease Coran.

But the squirrel seemed perfectly happy to saw away at its teeth, staying in Lance's open hands on its own terms. Lance held it out to Hunk, who shifted back like a same-charged magnet. "Say hello to the Safe Passage Squirrel!"

Hunk just stared bug-eyed, like the creature was threatening him with a knife. "Um..." he uncomfortably said, leaning back further. He visible swallowed as he cautiously held up a hand, wiggling his fingers a bit. "H-hello."

The creature set aside hardly a heartbeat to chirrup in response, before determinedly returning to its magic trick of making the hardtack disappear. It was a foolish little animal - and Lance felt personally insulted that it just _had_ to have white marks- but it was at home in the forest, unlike orcs and mortals. He grinned to himself, stroking the fur of its head with his thumb. "This little guy is our ticket through."

 

Lance had thought that the biggest challenge they would face, would be discerning what counted as forest and what as path. Would treading on the sparse grass overgrowing it, doom them? What about stray leaves that had fallen on the dirt? Might there be trails made by animals, that tricked them into thinking it was the real deal?

None of that turned out to be a concern. The edges of the trail were crisp like it had seen a gardener just the day before, and the dirt was swept free of leaves. With every minute's easy progress, Lance's steps grew more light and relaxed as he contented himself with the company of soft munching, swaying leaves, birdsong and heavy orc breathing against the back of his head.

After what Lance thought to be three hours in, his wrists threatening to cramp from the weight of the squirrel, the hardtack was suddenly done. And so was the squirrel's willingness to stay put.

It leaped from his hand so fast Lance didn't think twice to wrestle for it like it was a bar of slippery soap. He only just barely remembered the invisible boundary of safety, catching himself by his tiptoes as the squirrel scampered off, zigzagging between the trees.

"Oh no!" Hunk cried out, pushing past Lance. "The Safe Passage Squirrel is getting away!"

The blood dropped to Lance's feet when he tracked his companion's movement. "No, Hunk, don't step off the-"

 _Crrrruuuuunch._ The dry leaves under Hunk's foot shattered easily, and immediately afterwards, the offended forest went dead silent.

Hunk froze mid-stride, and seemed to notice the silence first, searching the canopy for the vanished birds. It took a few more seconds for the candle to catch fire. "Ohhhhhh. Right. Don't step off the path." He moved oddly as he returned his foot to the trail, like he was trying to turn back time by repeating the action precisely in reverse. "So, uh... what does this mean for me?"

He looked to Lance for answers, who just didn't know. He'd expected a dramatic and sudden demise, like haunting hands reaching out the pile of leaves to drag Hunk below into a different realm. Maybe the forest gave a bit of leeway?

But that silence. It was like every being in the woods was plotting against them.

Lance shuddered, suddenly feeling cold.

"Hey, uh... creepy forest?" Hunk called out to the air, turning around like he was looking for someone to face. "I'm really sorry, okay? I didn't mean to step off the path." He held still for a few seconds, then, having received no response, dropped to his knees. He brushed his hands along the leaves and dirt, piling some up where he had stepped and patting it down. "Look, I'm even putting the dirt back, getting rid of the footsteps and all-"

"What are you doing? You're making it worse!" Lance lunged out at his friend, huffing and puffing as he did his best to pull him away from the path border. It was only when the orc relented and let himself be pulled, that Lance managed to pin his hands together, far away from where they could do something stupid. He heaved as he recovered his breath. "Okay. So. Nothing bad has happened to you. So maybe if we just _don't do it again,_ we'll be good from here on out." He released the orc's hands, straightening his knapsack over his shoulders. "Just... watch your feet."

This time around Lance let Hunk take the lead, so he could catch the orc doing something foolish before he actually did it. The forest continued to be eerily quiet, their breaths and the stirring of the dirt beneath their feet the only sounds they could discern.

Lance stretched his stiff shoulders backwards, rolling them to work out the crick. All at once he felt a rush of relief, and felt straighter than before. Like a weight had been taken off his back. But he also suddenly felt oddly exposed, like when he wore a hat for hours then took it off.

Lance froze at the spot, heart pounding as he twisted an arm around. His hand ran along the cloth of his shirt, the leather of his tunic, and the string of his bow. He craned his neck, scanning the ground behind him. "H... Hunk," he carefully said, nudging the orc's arm.

"Yeah? What's up?" He turned around and only needed one second to take in Lance's appearance before he lifted a pointing finger. "Where's your bag?"

They nearly jumped out their skin at a rustling sound, Hunk practically jumping into Lance's arms for protection. Lance caught the movement of a bush out of the corner of his eye, his pulse sounding off in his ears as he tried to spy whatever was hiding in the foliage.

" _Heehehehehehee,_ " a high voice in completely the other direction, giggled. Lance swung around widly, almost shouldering Hunk in the gut. He held his breath, back to Hunk's stomach as he froze up and scanned the scene for the smallest movement.

But the woods had gone dead still again.

"...I'm guessing _they_ know where your bag is?" Hunk cautiously asked.

Lance opened his mouth to reply, but found his throat dry. Whatever _they_ were, they'd gotten close enough to him to slip his bag off his shoulders without him even _noticing_. At that rate, Lance's throat could be cut and his ghost would be three minutes late with realizing it. Unable to do much else, he nodded.

"Yours had the map," Hunk remembered.

The prince swallowed heavily, feeling a dampness break out on his forehead. "It- it's okay," he tried to reassure. "We know which way we're heading. As long as we... we don't let this hold us back. We don't need it. Just... keep moving forward."

" _Hahahaha! Ahaha!_ " the seemingly disembodied voice echoed from the canopy. Hunk yelped, desperately trying to fit inside Lance's sleight shadow. His hands covered his head like he expected rocks to pelt down on them.

"Come on, Hunk," Lance urged, tugging his friend's arm. "Sooner we get out of this thing's territory, the better."

The bushes stirred again, Lance's head whipping up to see the movement. A single, slim branch swayed, like a bird had just taken off. Lance shook his head, training his eyes forward. "You first, buddy."

But when Hunk fell into the path, turning his back on Lance, the mortal noticed one very, very obvious, gaping absence. Somewhere in the time Lance had looked away from Hunk and at the bushes, Hunk's pack had vanished, too. "Oh come on!" Lance groaned, tossing his arms helplessly at the cursed forest. "Are you frigging kidding me?!"

"Hey uh, maybe it's like a Safe Passage Knapsack?" Hunk suggested, nervously optimistic. "Or, uh... two Safe Passage Knapsacks? Like, we've given a lot of stuff now, so we should be good? Or- or is this the point where the woods starts stealing people, too? Oh please tell me I'm first!"

Lance frowned in astonishment. "You want to be _first?_ "

"Well yeah. Better to be dead than to be the one left alone in the dark, dealing with the grief and wondering when you'll die."

Lance gripped Hunk's wrist as tight as he could, trying to squeeze sense into him. "We're _not_ going to die, Hunk!"

"Ahahahahaaa!" the giggling continued.

"Ahahaha!" Lance retorted sarcastically, sticking his tongue out at wherever it came from. "Find somebody else to bother! We're out of here!" He marched on, determination pushing him forward, leaving Hunk to bound along when he realized he was getting left behind.

 

Despite that they were making progress, the treetops kept stirring, as the giggler skipped from one tree to the other invisibly, apparently not bound by any territorial borders. Its voice was silent for the most part, stifled snickers ringing out only when Hunk was turning circles as he tried, and failed, to track it down with his eyes and ears.

The path ahead of them took no turns, and had no recognizable landmarks to reassure them they were somewhere different than they had been an hour before. It was starting to feel like they were stuck in a giant mouse wheel, the same path rolling by time and again as they walked and walked without getting anywhere.

Hour eight - probably - Hunk started walking strangely. His steps became lazy, edging to the sides of the path just far enough to make Lance nervous before he returned to the middle. He was walking with his head tipped back, nose making audible sniffing sounds.

"Hunk, buddy..." Lance cautiously asked, as he tried to find an opening so he could walk beside his companion and get a proper look at his condition. "Are you okay?"

"Hm?" Hunk said lazily, eyes half-lidded like he was falling asleep. They popped open suddenly. "Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. I just-" he interrupted himself with a deep inhale through the nose. "I'm just smelling something real tasty right now. Like... the fluffiest cake in the world, fresh out the oven."

Lance's nerves twanged in worry. Was this Hunk's misstep getting at him? "Well ignore it, okay? Nobody's baking anything out here; it's the forest playing tricks on your mind."

"You're right, you're right," Hunk quickly agreed. But his face was only sane for a few ticks, before his expression fluttered shut in bliss again. "Oh that's good. That's some buttery, sugary, salty paradise right there. This forest sure knows how to replicate a good cake smell. Lance?"

"Yeah?" the prince grumbled, annoyed at the watering in his mouth that Hunk's description brought along.

"I'm hungry," the orc admitted, nervously fiddling with his hands.

Lance sighed. He patted his other pocket, feeling the familiar shape of the second slab of hardtack. Orcs needed more food than mortals. He could still go another day or so without food, but Hunk was at real risk of keeling over if his stomach got too empty. Hunk could have it all. However Lance would have to personally make sure it lasted as long as it could. "Alright. I've got some more of that biscuit stuff. You can eat when we camp out for the night."

"Okay," Hunk said, and was quiet for only a few seconds before he spoke again. "Lance?"

" _What?_ " Lance hissed through his teeth, clenching his fists to hold them back.

Hunk seemed to catch on to his sour mood. But it didn't deter him.  "...I'm tired."

Lance half scowled, half sighed, wiping a hand down the tense muscles of his face. The motion made things fit into place a bit better, which helped make him feel less at edge. "Alright. We'll camp once we find a spot where the path's a bit broader so we don't accidentally roll off in our sleep. Right? You can go on for a few more minutes, right buddy?"

"Well I can," Hunk shrugged. "But I don't know if Slav here approves."

 _Slav._ Lance looked around for a third person, maybe the tree hopper trailing along with them, only breathing easy when he couldn't find anything. "Please tell me that's your name for your stomach and not some creepy being with multiple arms following us that only you can see."

Hunk chuckled. "Nope, Slav's my stomach, alright," he said, petting his belly.

Lance gritted his teeth. "Then please enlighten me as to why you'd name your stomach. And Slav, of all names!"

The orc shrugged. "Y'know we've been walking for some time now, and Slav and I have been having some good conversations, so I thought it's only fair to give him a name. And he just seems like a Slav to me."

"What kind of conversations can you even have with your stomach?"

"Existential stuff. Like the likelihood of the existence of alternate realities in which I get to eat something right about now."

Lance deadpanned. "You're becoming delusional." He rolled his eyes. " _Hoh_ -kay! Let's camp." He dropped down on the spot, fishing out the hardtack and tossing it at Hunk.

His orc teeth could crack through the hardtack like it was a sugar cookie, and Lance regretted holding onto the squirrel as long as he had. Hunk could have had double the amount. Heck, they might not even have lost their supplies if the squirrel hadn't left unexpectedly and lead Hunk off the path. But hindsight wasn't useful for much besides wasting energy on things that couldn't be changed.

Now that they were still, a numb ache was spreading from Lance's legs to the rest of his limbs, coaxing him to just... stay, leaning against his big friend's side, and rest. He drifted off to the crunching sounds of hard biscuit being milled to a fine powder.

 

Lance shot awake, catching his breath in what felt like the first time in hours. The memories of his nightmare were crystal clear for only a second before they slipped between his fingers, leaving him alone in the darkness of the shaded night.

 _Wait- alone?_ His head shot to his side, where there was three hundred pounds less teenage orc than he would have liked there to be.

Whether he'd been sleepwalking or was wide awake, no doubt Hunk had followed his nose off the trail into the woods. A trail of leaves squashed into the soil proved it all the more. Red hot rage simmered in his gut as he directed his desire to hit something at his thighs. "Dammit, Hunk!" His skin throbbed under the impact for a moment, but the pain went away all to quick, Lance's problems rushing back to him. He clutched his hair, pulse racing as he tried to grasp onto some sort of plan that wouldn't cause more death than he could help.

He tried to convince himself there was nothing he could do. That it was all of Altea - maybe even the whole civilized world - against one life. That it was stupid to risk it all when rumours and reports and even foreboding writing in stone said there was nothing Lance could do about it without joining Hunk in his fate.

Yet another side of him - one much less logical, but that Lance was quite proud to have - won the fight, and he found himself picking up his bow, lining up an arrow, and taking that step into the Forest of Tricks.

 

Again, nothing happened with the dreaded first step. And quickly Lance learned that nothing happened with the second or third, either. He was just beginning to think that it was all a myth after all, and that the missing people were just as series of unfortunate coincidences, when he saw three flickering white lights in the distance. They rose and fell, dancing as they vanished behind trees then reappeared. "Wisps," he whispered, a spark of hope erupting in his heart. He'd known their powers by heart since he was a little by who only lived adventures through the books his and Allura's nanny read them. Blue wisps lead to the nearest safe heaven. White wisps lead to what you seek most of all. Yellow wisps lead to what you need. Green wisps lead to something you should know before continuing on your journey. And red wisps lead to a sudden and cruel death.

If he could only keep up with the wisps, he'd be able to find Hunk and then their way back to the trail. Lance broke into a trot, weaving between the trees, the tiny dots taking a painful amount of time to grow bigger.

Lance squinted to see them clearer, their dance having slowed down to almost a stand-still. Something didn't feel right. White wisps should have pulled towards him by then, then went ahead to light the path to his lost friend. But instead, they marked a place.

He slowed to a stop, only for the wisps to stop dead still, too. Like they'd heard him, and were watching him. Their glows brightened and dimmed enticingly as the balls of light began to hum a note that sent a prickle through his skin. He self-consciously checked his hands for creeping insects. That's when he noticed the colour cast over him was a little off.

He frowned at one of the lights, watching it carefully, trying to tune in on its brightest moment. It was hard to tell, but he could have sworn the lights were a little... pink.

 _No, not pink._ Lance felt like a bucket of ice had been tipped over his head. _Red. Disguised red wisps._

Lance didn't waste a heartbeat doing anything other than sprinting the opposite way, fighting his path through the plants with his bow. A spider web caught over his face at one point, a bit of the thread stinging at his eye, but he couldn't care any less. He looked over his shoulder with his good eye, pumping and heaving as he tried to keep up the speed, and saw the wisps drop their disguise and glow a cruel blood red, yet stayed put. They were angry at their prey getting away, but lucky for Lance, there was nothing they could do about it.

Only when the lights vanished completely behind a thick covering of trees did Lance pause to breathe. And then realize as he turned around, finding identical trees in every direction, that he was probably just as doomed anyway. He'd run so much he didn't know where he was in comparison to the wisps, let alone his starting point.

Something in him snapped. His breath had only just recovered, but then he was heaving again, getting in full lungs of air yet not finding any relief in it. His arms and legs were numb and buzzing at the same time, and his knees wobbled and gave in beneath him. The silence was painful, a loud nothingness that shot right through his head from one ear to the other. He shielded his ears with his hands. Were they bleeding? They had to be bleeding, they hurt too much to not be badly injured. But the ache in his lungs was escalating rapidly. He tried to count ticks as he breathed, but the numbers kept happening faster and he didn't know how to slow them down. He was all alone, swallowed up in the darkness of an airless void.

Then there was something from the outside, touching his shoulder, grounding him. The speed of ticks slowed down to what he remembered them being. His rapid breath quelled, his lungs filling up with sweet, oxygen-rich air again. He gratefully grasped the hand, a comforting warmth in the cold of the night. "Th- thank you," he said as he looked up at his saviour.

Only for his pulse to start rapid fire all over again as he met two storm blue eyes.

The witch - _Keith,_ Lance remembered he'd been called - smiled gently, in a way Lance hadn't thought the stern and focused face could have. "What are you doing all the way out here, hmm?" Keith playfully asked, crouching down to Lance's eye level.

Lance couldn't believe his luck, though he wasn't certain whether it was good or bad. His arrows were only good at a distance, and Keith had the Red Sword strapped to his back, ready to use at a moment's notice. But at least Lance had the sword in sight, and Keith looked so open and trustworthy, Lance couldn't help but just be straightforward with the truth. "...Looking for you, actually."

A flicker of concern crossed Keith's face, before he beamed, tilting his head slightly. "Should I be worried?"

The almost flirtatious response warmed Lance's cheeks. He suddenly remembered his hand on Keith's, and promptly removed it, coughing awkwardly as he shuffled backwards. "Well, um... No. No, you're good. It's just, you took something that's not yours. That sword." Keith followed Lance's gaze, peeking over his own shoulder curiously, like it was the first time he was hearing about it. "...And I kinda really need you to give it back," Lance tacked on, since apparently it wasn't obvious.

A few tense ticks passed as Keith seemed to ponder the request. "Okay," he pleasantly said, reaching back for the hilt. Lance flinched, fearing to be chopped into two with one swipe. But instead, the hilt was gently nudged against his hands, allowing him to take it easily. Puzzled, Lance looked up at the young man who'd had the power to kill him on the spot, but didn't even seem to acknowledge it. "All you had to do was ask," Keith said.

The sword felt much lighter than Lance had expected it to, like putting muscle into lifting a box only to find it was empty. He effortlessly raised it with one arm by the odd hilt, the shining lines of quintessence leaving an arc of red as he cut through the air.

Keith shifted, drawing Lance's gaze. "Is that... all you're here for?" he slowly asked, seeming disappointed.

Lance's heart panged at the sight. He wished the smile back, but other than delaying them splitting apart again, there wasn't much he could do. "Actually... I lost my friend." Keith's face lit up at the lack of a goodbye. "He's an orc," Lance continued. "Around my age. Big, tall, wears yellow, likes cake."

The witch boy beamed. "Don't worry. We already found your friend."

 _...We?_ Lance's mind echoed.

"You're probably tired and hungry like he was," Keith said, voice slow and floaty like a lullaby. His hand nudged Lance's, and he instinctively took it. "If you come with me, I can take you to him," Keith promised, stepping closer, swaying lightly. "And you could eat all the food you crave, and sleep in a soft, warm bed."

"I've got to admit..." Lance drawled, the crick in his neck from sleeping on the ground dulling even at the thought of a pillow and a blanket. He felt tempted to lean against Keith, but held his balance, though he found himself swaying in rhythm with him. "That sounds real good about now."

Keith kindly smiled in response, taking Lance's other hand so he had to walk backwards to lead him. He seemed to know the woods like the back of his hand, never checking behind him yet not brushing so much as an elbow against a tree.

Lance felt awkward with the unwavering gaze staring back at him. He searched for something his eyes or mind could settle on other than the sheer amount of  _feeling_ Keith's face carried. "So... what exactly is this place you're taking me? Your house? A camp? An inn?"

"You'll see." It might have sounded ominous, if Keith's voice hadn't been so reassuring. "It's a place where all can be safe and warm."

It felt like only five steps more, before Lance found himself out the endless expanse of trees and in a clearing lit by tall torches emanating soft purple light. There was a long table laid out before him, serving platters the sizes of wagon wheels heaped tall in all manners of food- meats, breads, pies, seafood and desserts. The scent wafting from them was strong and heavenly, especially the four-tiered cake decorated in lacy frosting, and oh wow when did Lance sit down in a chair?

The Red Sword was resting across his knees. He had an empty plate in front of him, but the one to his left held a tall stack of food that was shrinking at an alarming rate. His eyes followed the big hands seizing the cakes and fruit and cuts of meat, along burly arms, to the face that was scarfing it all down. "Hunk!" Lance cried out in joy, throwing his arms around the thick bicep of his friend. "You're alive!"

Hunk chuckled. "Gotta tell you, buddy. This creepy forest has got some good cake to offer."

"And there's plenty more to share." Lance tipped his head, finding himself looking at an tall, scruffy, earthy-looking man with brown marks. He was leaning coolly with his elbow on Lance's chair back, a goblet in his hand. "Come on, buddy, help yourself. You've clearly been missing out on the good life."

Lance hesitated. There was just so much, and everything looked so untouched, he felt anxious about picking something and causing the first crack in the presentation.

The man wouldn't have it, though. When Lance wavered too long for his taste, he took it up to himself to scoop and slice and grab until Lance's plate sported just as impressive an ensemble as Hunk's. He smirked at Lance with an out-of-place knowing look in his eye before moving further along the table.

Lance tried to peer beyond Hunk, and across the table, but the violet flames from the candles let out a hazy heat that distorted the moving, laughing and loud crowd beyond them. There were many people, but just who those people were, Lance couldn't tell. They seemed to have stumbled upon a secret midnight banquet of some sort. Perhaps in honour of a deity of extravagance or gluttony that Lance was unfamiliar with.

"Not hungry?" The voice came from Lance's other side. He turned to see Keith seated beside him, his own plate empty as he seemed to wait for Lance to begin feasting.

"I was just wondering what this place is," Lance admitted. "Are we celebrating something?"

Keith grinned. "We're celebrating having you and your friend as guests this lovely evening."

"Oh." But that only puzzled Lance more. His forehead was starting to hurt from the thoughtful frown he couldn't dismiss. "But like, this banquet was in full swing way before I got here. You couldn't have put this together in the... what, hour? Since I lost Hunk. And getting all these people together should take much more than a day."

"What can I say? We're eager to celebrate." Keith's hands twisted weirdly in the air beside his head, like he was twirling an invisible ponytail. Lance tracked the movement, wondering what he was missing. Keith followed his eyes, then blanched, swiftly putting his hand back on the table. Then, as an afterthought, laid it over Lance's as he leaned into his personal space. "Relax. There's nothing to worry about. Here we are all safe and warm."

The words sent an uncomfortable chill down his spine. He felt like not just the air in front of his face was being invaded. It was more like someone was reaching through his chest as if his flesh were made of water, tugging his heart in directions it wasn't meant to go.

"Your cup is still empty," Keith remarked, lifting up a brass jug and tipping it over the goblet at Lance's plate. A very deep purple wine, the colour of Keith's eyes in the firelight when Lance first saw him, poured out like a string of silk. He didn't stop until it reached the brim, making Lance wonder how he would be able to move it to his lips without spilling. "You should drink," the witch encouraged, swiping the cup up himself and nudging it against Lance's lips. Some of it dripped down onto his shirt, but he hardly felt it. "You must have had a long journey."

"N-no." Lance pushed the cup away, gently, trying not to come across as aggressive. Keith was only being kind to him, after all. He grabbed the sword off his lap and stood up. "My friend and I, we're on a time sensitive mission. We can't stay any longer than we already have." Despite his own words, Lance couldn't help his eyes longingly caressing over the food, his stomach speaking out loud for him.

Keith paused for a few seconds, before nodding. "Okay. But perhaps you'd like to take some food with you."

Lance wasn't so sure how he ended up with a burlap sack in his hand, his chair gone as he stood over the table. There was a baguette in his hand.

"That's too long to fit into the bag," Keith pointed out. "You might want to cut it in half."

And then there was a decent bread knife lying next to the oak cutting board that had replaced his plate. Long, sharp, serrated. Lance's hand easily gripped around the handle. He rested the bread on the cutting board, estimating the halfway mark with his eye before he lay the knife against it.

 _Odd._ His arm felt like something cold was pressed against it. He turned to Keith in his confusion.

Keith just carried on smiling. "Go on. You'll need it for your journey."

Lance was just about to make the first cut. But then there was a sudden screech - a nearly inhuman battle cry - ringing out from the tops of the trees. And Keith, Lance kidded not, _snarled_ in the direction of the sound.

Things happened fast. A blur swung down from the trees on a vine. The man from earlier sprinted to their side, and suddenly he had Hunk's hair in a fist with a goblet pressed to his throat. Three small round things fell from the sky, two landing further along the table and one landing with a _plop!_ in the jelly across from Lance. Keith was yelling at the man and he was yelling back, only he called him by another name. Then the jelly exploded, a cloud of smoke forcing its way into Lance's eyes, smothering the purple light. The goblet was a knife, and Hunk's life was in danger. The table and the food faded faster than they should have, faster than Hunk became no more than a silhouette. Lance could just barely see his own hands, and he could see his right arm using a knife to pin down his left, poised like he intended to saw it off. His spine went rigid, blood draining out of his face as he realized what he would have done to himself had the smoke come a few seconds later.

Then there were hands around his elbow. "Come on, come on, run!" a girlish voice half-ordered, half-begged, as she yanked on his arm so hard he dropped the knife. Gripping the sword tight as to not lose it, too, his head in a daze from all the smoke, he allowed the small person to guide him into the nothingness at a sprint. Every few paces or so he knocked against something big and soft following at his side.

 _Hunk,_ Lance's mind supplied him, some of the anxiousness dimming away knowing that they hadn't become separated again.

Threats were being yelled after them, the voice of the man they'd seen but also of a woman, though they grew softer in the distance. Lance tried to listen for Keith's siren song, half-expecting it to call out to him, to coax him back. But Keith seemed to have vanished with the arrival of the smoke.

After a sharp turn at a rock outcrop, and a leap of faith over a narrow brook, they broke out of the smoke and back into the clear air of the forest.

It was dawn.


	7. The Annoying Short Thing That Saved Their Butts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is kinda rushed, and a day late because I ended up splicing together what would have been two chapters, but I feel good about it as it is. I'm supposed to be funneling most of my free time into making decorations for a music concert, but I made a promise to you guys that I plan to keep (and quite frankly I'm tired of snipping paper up into piano keys). Updates should hopefully continue being more-or-less once per week.

* * *

  _Interesting Fact:_

_Elves have quintessence of their own, however have very little use for it. For the most part there is no flow of quintessence between them and the environment. Rather, they guide the green quintessence already present in the trees and plants to encourage movement and growth. Whether sylph or gremlin, they have a symbiotic relationship with the fauna, healing and nurturing plants in exchange for being allowed to bend them for their purposes._

* * *

Their rescuer turned to face them, shoving his hands casually in his pockets, marks glinting in a stray sunbeam before settling down to a shaded green.

He was the type of person who was neither physically nor morally above headbutting Lance in the diaphragm, should the prince offend him. That much was obvious through the feisty and resolute way in which he crossed his arms at them, stance wide, like he was looking down at them and not them at him. The grin should have softened it out, especially on such a youthful, round face with a cute button nose, but there was something undeniably smug about the show of teeth. Lance was just barely holding back on the impulse to smack him on the back of the head to put him in place, like Allura had always done when they were kids.

The boy had fawn hair that seemed almost weightless, curling up into soft tufts that framed his face. His fringe was squashed flat against his forehead by a pair of goggles soldered out of re-purposed parts, the coloured lenses mismatched. Any edges or shadows his babyface may have had, were smudged away by earthy  
paints and mud, the same patterns reflected on his bare feet all the way up to where his ratty pants began. In fact, he seemed entirely dressed for camouflage in the treetops. The oversized shirt he was wearing as a tunic was a swampy green mottled with age and dirt. The neck laces were pulled tight, scrunching the fabric up, and the getup was tied into place around the waist with a sturdy-looking belt of leather, which honestly should have weighed him down based on the amount of bulging sacks and pouches tied to it.

Instead, his steps seemed to defy gravity, not even stirring the leaves under his feet as he mock-impatiently tapped a foot. "So." The brown eyes sparkled as he looked the mortal and orc up and down, making both feel foolish and small. "What are you two idiots doing off the trail in the middle of a Dark Spot?"

Struck by indignity, Lance opened his mouth to retort- only to have a faceful of orc hand silence him.

Through the gaps in the fingers Lance could see Hunk casually scratching the back of his head, like he wasn't motionlessly resisting all Lance's attempts to pry free. "Yeah, uh, us two idiots are very sorry about disturbing your lovely forest and would gladly mind our own business from here on out if you would be so kind as to show us the way back to the path."

The elf boy's grin just grew more smug, clearly reveling in having the position of power. "You're smart. I like you." He wagged a finger sassily. "But don't think you're dodging my question that easily. I'm bored, I want to be entertained and I have a feeling I'm going to get a kick out of your backstory."

"Riiight, right right right." There was a gross pulling feeling as Hunk's sweaty palm split from Lance's face. Hunk fiddled with his hands in his lap, out of nervousness apparently, and not at the glare he didn't notice Lance was shooting him _for basically ruining the last three months' painstaking intensive skincare, thanks a lot._ "Well you see here, Lance is the prince of-"

"OF BACKSTORIES! Yeah!" Lance jumped in before Hunk could blow his cover. For one, the Sylvan territories weren't loyal to Altea, just barely tolerating them as neighbours. For another, they had an intense dislike for kings, choosing to rather elect temporary leaders in times of crisis and otherwise having no leadership or laws at all. There was no telling how he'd be treated if his real title came up. He tried to play casual, but there wasn't much to coolly lean against, so he settled for the trunk that was Hunk's body. "Oh, I could talk about the places we've been and the stuff we've done _all day._ " He felt awkward keeping his hands still, so he animatedly involved them with his words, which just made them feel more awkward. "We sure are adventurous, aren't we, my buddy... Slav?" He nudged a stiff Hunk, urging a response that never came.

Their companion quirked a brow, clearly unamused. "I'd settle for the last forty-eight vargas."

Hunk lightly touched Lance's arm, before he spoke in what couldn't even be described as an attempt to a whisper. "Lance, hear me out; maybe we shouldn't lie."

"Huuuuunk..." Lance moaned in frustration.

"I'm just saying," Hunk innocently held up his hands, "She did save us, y'know, from people trying to kill us. She can't be the worst person out here to tell. And we owe her, anyway."

"She? _Her?_ " Lance looked the other up and down once more, trying to find what made Hunk so certain about the pronouns of the unisex figure and masculine getup. "You- you're a girl? _How?"_

The apparent girl just switched the sides of her smirk and her lean. "Well now I like you even more," she said to Hunk, clarifying that Lance had, for the second time in two days, wildly placed someone wrong. _Man, I gotta work on my radars._ "It takes most people two or three guesses. Like Numbskull over here."

Lance wanted to say something, not accustomed to his honour just casually being dragged through the dirt, but a glance from Hunk had him clamping his own mouth shut.

"Besides," she waved off, "I've gotten more than my share as payback for saving your sorry butts. I won't go into details, so see your backstory more as a gift from you to me."

"How about an exchange?" Lance mimicked her pose. He saw her eyes jump down to his crossed arms, before she met his gaze with the look of sadistic pity. Taking pleasure in how pathetic he seemed. Lance steeled through, gritting his teeth to hold back the simmering outburst. "We offer you information; you offer us guidance to the trail."

She adjusted the goggles, forcing some of her hair up in spikes and bunches. "Where do you need to be? The North Exit?"

The sudden cooperation almost gave Lance whiplash. He had not expected her to allow a threat, let alone for her to go above and beyond and see them through the entire forest journey. Maybe she really _was_ bored, rescuing lost fools in the woods because there was nothing better to do.

Or maybe it was a trap; her way of gaining trust and trying to sneakily get them to out their identities and motives.

"Some place called Rune Falls."

Lance wanted to slap someone. Maybe Hunk, maybe himself. Maybe the little elf kid for still seeming so annoyingly smug. "We're meeting a friend there!" Lance tossed into the soup pot of information, hoping it would throw her off the scent of their real mission.

"Hm." She held her chin. He wasn't sure whether her look was contemplative or skeptical. But he would have preferred if she didn't think long about it in any way. "I take it you've never been there before?"

No, questions like that just wouldn't do. "What's it to you?" Lance shot. "Are we going on a road trip and bonding over backstories or not?"

She stood her ground despite his outburst, not even a flash of fear. He might as well have been a random gust of wind stirring her hair. "'Kay," she said, spinning around in what seemed like a randomly chosen direction. She skipped ahead weightlessly, making amazing speed for such short legs. Lance had to speedwalk to stay behind her, while Hunk, with his stubby legs, was straight-up jogging. "My name's Pidge!" she called back over her shoulder.

"Lance," "Hunk," they sounded off.

"I _know,"_ she said, hand grabbing a thin tree trunk so she could swing around it as she waited for them to catch up. "You already said them, remember? Now come on, I wanna hear." She slowed to a walk so they could be on either side of her, at last able to communicate like civilized human beings, and not like a rabbit and hunter's back-and-forth banter.

Lance had hesitated about letting Hunk take charge of the story. But afterwards, he was glad he did. "Well you see so Lance wakes me up in the middle of the night, right? Just straight up jumps me and says we've got to sneak out. So we go out the kitchen door and I nearly drown, and then Lance meets someone he  
thinks is his soulmate, so he runs off after his crush and then he runs into me. And we have witches - witches in Altea, am I right? - coming after us, apparently.  
So we head to this rock, and there was mist, and a red glow, and Lance got bit by an owl, and then the crazy wizard wanted to teleport us but didn't. So I had to climb up the stairs and then apparently there are five of them, like the six races except only five? So we need to get to Rune Falls, except our food disappears and I get hungry and the next thing I know I'm sitting at a table eating breakfast, lunch and dessert for dinner. And now we're here."

For some reason, Pidge was watching Lance with a furrow in her brow throughout most of Hunk's rambling. A sweat was breaking out on his forehead, worried that she was actually piecing together the jumbled mess that Lance could hardly make sense of (despite, y'know, having actually been there for it all), and somehow knew who he was. Unfortunately he didn't have the cover Allura had, with half of all baby girls for the year following her birth being named after her. But his name wasn't be _that_ uncommon that it should be a dead giveaway.

She opened her mouth, and his shoulders scrunched up, fearing the verdict.

"...I see why you're the prince of backstories and not him."

A long breath of relief escaped his lungs. "Yeah," he nonchalantly shrugged. "It's... it's all in the timing. Dramatic pauses, and all."

She nodded, although he got the feeling it was more to herself than his words. "Who stepped off the trail first?"

Lance pointed at Hunk, and Hunk pointed at himself. "It was an accident," Hunk squeaked. "I swear I put the dirt back!"

"What's with the whole weird 'don't step off the path' curse, anyway?" Lance asked. "Who does the kidnapping and murdering? The forest? The elves?"

"The witches," she nonchalantly said, like she'd said it would rain that afternoon.

" _What?"_ Lance screeched, throwing an arm out to the side to stop her in her path, forgetting for a moment how short he was and just barely stopping before he struck her in the neck. "How long have there been witches in this forest?"

Pidge calmly pushed his arm back down, continuing the walk. "For at least one generation. Not surprised you haven't heard of it; Alteans tend to stay out of these woods unless they're desperate." She paused for an unusually long time, probably waiting for the insult to simmer to optimal effect. "Since the forest is sylvan and the path is Altean, mages put a protective mask along the edge so no-one using scout magic can tell if there are travelers in the woods, and where they are. Alternatively, nobody on the path can figure out ahead of time where elvish settlements are, making it hard to dash in, cause havoc and dash out. But once the witches stormed the place after the War of Darkness and chased the sylphs up the trees, that meant if someone was stupid enough to put one toe over the border, the witches knew exactly where to find some easy pickings who had nowhere else to go."

Lance wondered how their court had just accepted the total silence from one of their protected territories, especially one that controlled a part of their border. "Hold up. As far as all Alteans are concerned, no witches are getting past the borders. Except yesterday we came across two who did. And now you're telling me witches are just casually hanging out on this side of the border, behind a magic mask our people created?"

"They don't have any real settlements or anything, this is just a strategic location," Pidge corrected. "They've got just enough of them posted here to keep control. Generally it's their underdogs who aren't useful anywhere else. Easy prey for the Altean army, but the sylphs are hiding in their treehouses and refusing to get involved, and nobody listens to gremlins." She made a spitting noise, though Lance didn't see it go anywhere. He took a wide step forward just in case. "Who you came across were two well-known nasties called Rolo and Nyma," Pidge continued. "They're half-witches, and super good at illusions. But some well-aimed juniberry smoke bombs can make it all fizz out."

Lance recalled how he'd held his arm down, knife at the ready like the deed would be as easy and painless as dicing vegetables. He shuddered at the memory, unable to stop thinking further ahead in a timeline where Pidge hadn't come to the rescue. "They tried to make me cut my arm."

"Out after the white quintessence in your blood, no doubt," Pidge nodded. He was shocked about how such a young girl didn't seem the slightest disturbed at the fact. Then again, there was something very mature in her self-control and the way she spoke. Maybe she was older than she looked. Or maybe she had just been through too much. "They always try to make their victims hurt themselves; I think it works the same way as tickling yourself? Like, if somebody else does it, you notice, and it breaks you out the trance, but when you do it, it's duller and doesn't really give the same feeling. We're here, by the way."

All it took was pushing a branch out the way, and the path was laid out before them, stretching on to the left and the right. A bit of dirt track forked off towards an open clearing the trail bordered. There was hardly anything other than grass all they way up to the cliff which framed the northeast side of the forest. A waterfall cascaded down from the heights to form a very dark pool that looked enticing in the open heat of the sunlight, large rocks framing and patterning it to paint the perfect picture.

"Wow," Lance remarked. "We were close."

"Recklessness is most common in the first and last stretches of a journey," Pidge wisely said. Lance could bet if he questioned it, she'd sit him down on a chair and whip out the stats and charts. Probably also dump a dozen scrolls of research papers on his lap.

The three of them just stood there for a few moments, the churning of the waterfall a background noise that chased away the awkward silence. "So, uh, what are you going to do now?" Lance asked her.

"Head home," Pidge answered. "I actually live near here."

"Really?" Lance's eyes shifted around, scanning for an ambush of camouflaged elves hiding in the trees and bushes. "With your family?"

"Well, um..." Pidge's hesitation drew his gaze back to her. _That_ was a first. She seemed to be the one to always have an answer for everything. "I used to," she relented. "Around here you don't really stick with your blood relatives; raising you is a community thing and then you're on your own. But us gremlins like to band together in small groups - especially with the witch threat - and consider ourselves family. I had two brothers. We did good for a while. Then eventually, luck ran out on them."

Lance expected the worst, heart panging for the small girl who was all on her own. "Are they-"

"I refuse to believe they are," she interrupted. "It doesn't feel like it. Just feels like they're far away, and can't come home. Sometimes I like to think that I'll be the one to rescue them some day." It looked like the last bit had slipped out without her meaning to, because she blanched, then tried to wave it off. "It's stupid. Just a kid's dream. I gotta go. But if you guys are done and you don't feel safe getting out the woods on your own, just holler, and I'll hear you, okay?"

"Thank you," Lance said, and he meant it. He felt like he was looking at her for the first time, and his memories of his paranoia from less than a dobosh before, soured. "You- you've been really helpful, saving us and guiding us here and all. I feel like it's unfair we just drop you here."

"Like I said, I've already been repaid for my efforts," she reminded him. "So, I'm heading off. Nice meeting you, Hunk! And Lance, I'm not quite sure what the protocol is around princes. Is this the part where I curtsy?"

Lance choked on air. "W- _what?_ Oh- oh yeah, 'cos I'm the prince of backstories," he belatedly remembered. He tried to play it off. "Nah, you can just kiss my hand or something," he attempted to joke.

Pidge snorted. "I've got some recommendations for what you should kiss," she scoffed, before hopping into the trees like a grasshopper, her form getting lost in the leaves just a few moments later.

They both stared after where she'd disappeared.

"She seems nice," Hunk remarked.

"She seems like a troublemaker." But Lance grinned at that fact, propping his hands up on his hips. "Would have been fun to have her around the castle growing up."

"Yeah, then you could have jumped on _her_ stomach in the middle of the night when you wanted to go on crazy adventures."

"I said I was sorry, didn't I?!" Satisfied that Pidge had to be far enough already, and also really eager to move on from the conversation, Lance turned to the clearing, taking in the surroundings.

The cliff was a dark slate grey, and intimidating, twice as tall as the distance between the ground and Lance's room's window, which he had never dared to scale. The waterfall started as a free-falling stream, but quickly dissolved into a mist which made it hard to see much besides a blanket of silver looking up. He could, however, spot a rune behind the spray, with a straight groove in the stone making its way up the vertical surface. He scanned for another rune, but couldn't find one, which meant that the middle of the spokes had to be a long, long way up.

"I'm guessing the sword is thataway," he gulped, slowly stretching his arm up to point.

Hunk followed her gaze. "What? Like, right in the middle?" he asked, joining Lance at his side.

The blood dropped to Lance's feet at the thought of being up there, hanging off a vertical surface with nothing but one hand's grip and a foothole. He opened his mouth to answer, but found he could only nod.

Hunk whistled. "So... We go home?"

"What? No!" Lance slapped his arm chidingly. "This is my second chance, Hunk. My redemption. I- I'm not giving it up."

The orc seemed to have expected that answer, only sighing in slight disappointment. "Alright." He pointed with his chin to the side, where it was less cliff-like and more of a hill that one's legs would feel for days. "It's less steep over there. You could practically walk all the way up then climb down from above the sword."

"Nuh-uh, that's like doing it twice, and we still need to catch up to Keith," Lance retorted. "I'm climbing up from here."

"Climbing down is easier, though," Hunk argued.

"But if you fall you'll have a lot more falling to do."

"You wouldn't fall if you don't get tired halfway! Let gravity do the work for you one step at a time. If you go up you have to lift your own body weight each time." 

"If you think climbing down's better then you do it. But I'm not waiting up for you once I've got the sword, you hear me?"

"What's the point of me going if I can't even pull the sword out? Like you said, it's the long way, but it'll take even longer if you have to do it after me!"

Throughout their disagreement they had been getting more and more into each other's personal space, to the point where Lance could feel the gross huff of air expelled from Hunk's nostrils. But he didn't back down, meeting the gaze defiantly. "...I'm climbing up."

"Well I'm climbing down," Hunk decided.

"Fine."

"Fine!"

 

It was most definitely not fine.

Five footholes up and Lance was already beginning to fear slipping and breaking an ankle on the way down. Ten footholes, and he was beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, Hunk had made some good points.

It didn't help that while Lance got stuck every few steps or so, scouting out the next course of action, Hunk was making the same gradual progress up the hill. Maybe Coran's staircase had shaken him into shape, or maybe he was just biting through out of sheer spite. Lance sure was, as he threw his weight up at a new handhold without much of a boost from his legs. His fingers were sore from needing to pinch the tiny juts of rock as tight as he could.

He guessed himself at about one third of the way up the cliff, the mist blocking out everything except in the small halo surrounding him, when out of nowhere a mix of dirt and gravel pattered down on his face. "Yeow!" He just barely managed to close his eyes in time for the worst of it, and tried to shake his face clean without shaking his way off the cliff. "Hunk! Watch it!"

"Sorry!" he called out from somewhere above, behind the white mass. "Hey, how far down do you think I am? A quarter of the way? Almost there? It- it feels like I should be almost there."

"I don't know, I can't see you!" Lance had to yell to feel like he was being heard. The roar of the water was louder higher up, where it rolled over the rocks and started to drop. He managed to boost himself by twice his height before he felt the splattering of water on his face, and Hunk said, "Lance... the rocks are getting slippery over here, I think I'm backing out."

The fire from their disagreement had dimmed in the real hardship that was the climb, so Lance had no hesitation to answer, "That's alright, buddy." He was still huffing from the last big pull. "Get back where it's safe. I've got this."

The words had hardly been said, before he wasn't alone in the void anymore. An orb of green light, seemingly without a source, buzzed just where he was about to lay his hand, like it was no more than an annoying insect. He held back to avoid crushing it.

"What?" Lance asked, feeling very uncomfortable having his hand more than a second off the surface. The wisp just started buzzing close to his ear, the light tickling his neck like a dandelion. "Hey, stop that!" he tried to sound stern through the shaky laughter he forced down, pressing his ear against his shoulder. "You're a green wisp, you're supposed to be wise and stuff! And climbing plus tickling equals very far fall, in case you haven't noticed. Basic math."

Erratically, the wisp started bouncing around his head, occasionally jumping into his face and causing him to reel back on instinct. "Hey, get away!" Lance yelled. "If you're not gonna be useful, back off!" Then it just straight-up grabbed Lance's sleeve, tugging. Which bothered him a lot because he hadn't ever thought of wisps as having _hands._  "Stupid wisp, you're gonna make me fall!" With one big shake of his arm, the wisp was slingshot into oblivion. He instantly felt bad for the little thing, hoping that it hadn't fallen into the water. But it had been in the way- putting Lance's life at risk, actually. He pushed down the guilt as he threw his hand up to the handhold the wisp had blocked him from.

Lance's heart pounded when he reached eye level with it, and realized it was a crack. In fact there were many cracks gathering just above him. He remembered how the Red Sword had looked, buried in a stone that was cracking under the force of the impact, yet refused to release it to anyone besides the chosen. Lance felt a grin pull at his face. "Bingo."

And there was the second groove, and the third. All radiating from the same place as the cracks. If Lance could only reach up, he could-

-not touch the sword, apparently.

His hand faltered around blindly, finding the meeting point of all the grooves. There was a hole just wide enough for him to stick his finger into, hardly blade-shaped. But nothing sticking out. "...There's no sword," he slowly came to terms with, body feeling cold as he could suddenly feel his spray-soaked clothes clinging to him.

"...Whaaat?" Hunks voice called out.

Lance could have cried. "There's no sword! The runes meet here, and there's a hole with cracks around it just like before, but there is! No! Sword! _Dangit!"_   He would have beat his fists against the wall if he'd had free hand. Instead he pressing his forehead against the cool, damp stone, just wanting to hide from the cruel world. "Why does this keep happening? I'm right there but then suddenly I'm not-"

"Lance?" Hunk sounded concerned. "Could you maybe come down here before having your anxiety attack?"

"I'm not going to have an anxiety attack, Hunk," Lance claimed. "I'm just going through a totally rational bout of increased blood pressure and hyperventilation." The edges of his vision spotted with darkness, and he could swear he felt the world turning, gradually pulling him away from the cliff. "Okay now I'm feeling lightheaded."

"Oop! Don't fall!" the orc warned.

"Not trying to!" Lance held on until his knuckles went white, trying to remember where his last foothold had been. Feeling nothing through his boots, he decided he really, really hated climbing down. He looked towards the falls, tracing back in his memory and trying to come up with just how far the pool reached- and where all the spiky-looking rocks were. He shook his head, deciding against a blind jump.

A foothold ended up popping up far to the side away from the waterfall, where he definitely hadn't been before, and it took some _amazing_ stretching, Lance had to add, as well as a daring half-leap of faith, for him to find himself on a much easier track down.

Once the mist cleared out and Hunk was in sight, staring up at him from the ground, Lance let go in an exercise of trust. The landing in the orc's arms was surprisingly soft, and he was deposited on his feet before he knew it.

Hunk worriedly looked him over. "So, no sword, huh? What now?"

And no map. He tried to remember where the remaining three dots had been, coming up practically blank. The Yellow Sword was west, that he remembered. And the blue one somewhere over the sea. But those were very vague instructions. "...I guess we go get Pidge and head after Keith," he decided. "And after, go back to Coran and see if he remembers where the other swords were."

Hunk looked hesitant to speak, index finger raising half-mast. "Lance, you know... We don't really need another sword. If you've just got the Red Sword in your hand, it'd be good enough for the people."

Lance sighed deeply. Taking the easy way and lying was so, so tempting, but... "But it won't be good enough for me." He looked his friend in the eye, opening himself up to expose his earnestness. "Hunk, I trust the legends. Altea deserves the best, even if it's not me or Allura or even Shiro. I refuse to go back home and pretend to be the Keeper when I don't really know. And, if it turns out I'm not..." His voice caught in his throat at the thought. He coughed it clear. "We'll just have to count on Shiro. No matter what, I'm not going to have someone sitting on the throne against the will of the fates and the people."

The orc took a few seconds to just watch him, taking in the rigid stance and even more rigid gaze. He seemed to understand, because he nodded, slapping a heavy hand down on Lance's shoulder. "Right," he said, dropping his arm. "Let's go find ourselves our guide."

 

They may or may not have had a contest over who could yell the elf's name the longest (Lance totally won, don't question it). And it only took that one yell before, seemingly out of nowhere, the elf girl dropped down from right above them, making Hunk yelp in shock and leaving Lance with an armful of orc.

"That was quick," she said, straightening herself out of the crouch she'd landed in. "Was your friend a no-show?"

"Yeah we think we missed him," Lance carried on spinning the tale. His eyes caught onto movement, tracking Hunk's hand as it subtly shifted towards one of Pidge's satchels before pulling back to his side. He forced his expression to stay neutral, not wanting to give away Hunk's actions just in case it was something useful. Lance noticed Pidge prepare to turn around, about to look at Hunk, and quickly spoke to draw his attention back to him. "A-uhhh, we might be able to catch up still if we can get out by the North Border!"

Pidge grinned, arms celebrating the outcome. "Sweet! Just hold on a moment, I've got to go do some things." And as quickly as she dropped down, she shot up again.

Lance crossed his arms, sternly side-eyeing the orc. "Hunk, I saw that."

The orc innocently raised his hands. "Saw what?"

"I don't know but I saw that. Now tell me..." He leaned into Hunk's personal space, a joke of an attempt at intimidation. He wasn't Pidge; he couldn't pull off looking threatening to someone several times his body weight. "What are you up to?"

"Oh, just a little scientific investigation into the behaviours and habits of tiny elves in creepy forests," Hunk shrugged, though Lance could see a hidden grin in his face. "I may or may not have slipped a Balmeran crystal, nothing big, hardly a bead, into her pocket for tracking purposes, y'know?"

Orcs had a strong connection to their earth goddess' crystals, and Hunk was particularly sensitive, able to sense a moving crystal from probably even the oppostive side of the forest. "So... what's the verdict?" Lance asked, unable to say he wasn't curious about the agile elf's journeys in the treetops.

"At this point I can conclude that she does not, in fact, warp into a different dimension whenever out of sight." Hunk pointed over his shoulder, away from the falls but still towards the cliff. "She went that way. Still kind of high up, but hardly a dobosh's walk away. Oh- ohhh, I'm losing her. Think she's home now, 'cos she's standing still."

"Let's get moving, then!" Lance tugged Hunk in the direction he'd pointed until he let himself be pulled along, the odd angle forcing the orc to run backwards. "Guide me."

"Really? Oh- okay." The orc's strides managed to get into rhythm with Lance's, so the random tugs to his arm ceased. "Well, I guess, straight? Then, uh... straight. Straight. Straight again."

"I'm already going straight!" Lance growled. "Give me directions that I'm not already following!"

"Alright. At the big oak tree, the one with the orange mushrooms growing up it, make a left perpendicular turn."

"Yeah?" the mortal encouraged as he followed the instructions.

"Then, at the birch with the twin trunks, yeah- right here, make a right perpendicular turn."

Lance halted, glaring back at Hunk. "Aren't we just heading the same way we were again?"

Hunk raised his shoulders in a _what can you do?_ manner. "Well you said you didn't want to go straight."

" _Grrraaaaaugh._ " With his frustrations growled out, Lance took a deep breath, resetting his system. "Alright, here's how it works. You stay quiet, unless you have an instruction for me that, if I followed it, would turn me in a different direction I was going in before. Gotcha?"

Hunk nodded. "Gotcha."

Relief washed over Lance. "Good."

"Up."

The prince frowned at the out-of-place word. "What?"

Hunk's eyes flicked in that direction, before settling back on Lance. "Up," he repeated.

Lance tipped his head back, noticing that they were pressing right up against the cliff. There was a sizable notch in the side at the level of the tree canopies, hard to see in when it was almost directly above them, but he wouldn't have been surprised if he was told it was a cave. "She's up there?"

"Feels like it." Hunk's eyes popped wide. "Oh wait the stone's moving again, yeah she's definitely up there. I wonder, shouldn't we keep it down? 'Cos we were supposed to wait for her, and now we're snooping around down here, where we totally shouldn't have known to go, and-"

Lance felt a tap against his shoulder, which denoted a third person, since Hunk was fully in his sight. He turned his head, expecting to come across an angry and offended Pidge, but instead found himself looking at a creepily hand-shaped tree branch, leaves sprouting from the tips. It waved at him, not side-to-side in a friendly way, but with the finger-twigs curling like claws. "Um..." He had no idea how one was supposed to address a tree. Formal? Informal? In Altean, or in Runforitese? He settled for just copying the wave. "...Hello?"

In a move as fast as a snap, the branch grasped his ankle. "Who-aaaah!" Lance's voice cracked as his weight tipped around and the ground below - no, above? - him suddenly grew much further away. Hunk only had a moment to stare at him worriedly from where the prince hung upside-down in the trees, before two branches grabbed him by the shoulders and had the decency to at least hang him upright alongside Lance.

"Um..." was all Hunk could say about their new situation.

Lance twisted his neck around, searching for a plan , when he realized that they'd been pulled up to the level of the cave, where, on the lip, the expected tiny, angry, offended elf girl was standing, arms crossed sternly. Her camouflage had been washed off, revealing a light splatter of freckles and naturally flushed cheeks. She called in their landing with one big wave of both her arms, and the next thing Lance knew, he was nursing a bruised forehead.

"If I hadn't caught myself by my arms I could have broken my neck, y'know!" he accused.

She seemed entirely unbothered. "If you hadn't planted a tracking device on me," she said, holding the tiny shining blue bead out so close, Lance had to squint to see it, before she did the same to Hunk. "You'd still be in the forest, minding your own business. This crystal's mine now, you got that?" And she promptly dropped it on a disorganized heap of all manners of tiny things that would be easy to lose.

Looking around at the dark interior, Lance realized most of the cave followed more-or-less the same pattern. There was hardly any floor space, piles of rope and metal scraps and knickknacks and other assorted and unsorted junk lying around, some in mounds almost as tall as Hunk. Lance worried it'd all come tumbling down if he so much as sneezed inside. There were also a few machine-like towers of assembled parts that looked like they might have been designed with a function, but with all the crazy parts sticking out it was hard to think of it as cohesively designed.

The closest thing to actual furniture was one three-legged stool, and a thick layer of blankets in one corner, the top blanket bundled together and an oversized pillow propped up against the wall. Just outside the cave mouth, practically under Lance's feet, was a ring of stones with a pile of ashes in the middle, alluding to a recent campfire. A lot of dirty, banged up pots and pans were stacked in a pile not far off, drawing flies.  "...Well," Lance remarked, hands on hips.

Pidge just glared at him. "Don't say anything," she warned.

"Oh no, I won't say anything," Lance casually replied, pretending to take an interest in his fingernails. "I won't tell you that you're a total hoarder, and I'm totally not thinking that this place is a disgrace of a mess, and I won't recommend you have a yard sale or something." He toed a coil of metal that seemed to have rolled away from its original spot, half-expecting it to suddenly turn into a snake and lash out at him. "Where'd you get this stuff, anyway?"

Again Pidge looked lost for answers, which would never not be disorientating. She dodged his gaze, chewing on her lip as her weight shifted between her feet. "Through... work," she replied.

Lance quirked a brow. "Work," he echoed.

"Yeah, work."

Throughout the exchange Hunk had actually snooped past into the cave, somehow managing to find empty space for his footsteps. He purposefully wandered up to a particularly bizarre-looking contraption. It was assembled out of a series of shrinking squares stacked on top of one another in a spiral, offering only small glimpses at what looked like much more complicated machinery inside. On top of the tower was rod which was ever-so-slightly glowing a faint green. "Woah," Hunk gushed. "Is that an aerovibration absorption structure? I though they were just theoretical; where'd you find one?"

"I built it," Pidge proudy said, purposefully shouldering Lance as she stepped closer to the orc. "Well, my brothers did, before..." She left it up to them to fill in the gap, looking like it was too difficult to mention twice in one day. But by the time she had joined Hunk, quickly with the help of her grasshopper-jumps, she was up to her high spirits again, patting the machine lovingly. "Once I get this baby working I can pick up freestanding luxide vibrations from the edge of the continent."

Lance might not have known what an aerothingummy something-whatsit structure was, but he could draw some conclusions from her explanation. Lenghs of luxide wire could perfectly carry sound vibrations over great distances without tainting them. If Pidge had found a way to eliminate the need for a wire, the possibilities were endless. "Is that right?" he drawled, stepping into the cave as well. He wondered whether it was wise to toss a stone in the bush. "All the way to the Hinterlands?"

Pidge scowled at him, pushing herself away from the invention. "Alright, you caught me. It's just that, it's the last thing they were working on, so it just... feels like the way to rescue them." She looked back at it, a far gentler smile than usual crossing her face. Lance thought it must have been the memories of her family that softened her up like that.

She wasn't all that bad of a kid, he decided.

Until he heard Hunk, with a weak voice, say, "...Lance?" as his hands reached out towards a pile.

Pidge was slapping his hands away in an instant. "Hey, get away from there!" she yelled.

But Hunk persisted, the tiny hands doing nothing to keep him from pulling up a painted scroll. "I- I think I found our map."

Lance didn't hesitate. Barely caring what he stepped on, and at more than one point hearing snaps under his feet, he clambered his way to them in a straight line. Glowing dots on the paper gave it away, and when he looked back to the newly exposed pile, he found- "And our bags!" Lance grabbed the nearest one, throwing its flap open to find all the food and blankets still tightly packed inside. He closed it, protectively throwing it over his shoulder before he spun to Pidge. For once, she cowered. "Why do you have our stuff?" He hardly had to ask why; he already knew. But he wanted to hear it from her.

She held up her hands in surrender. "I'm a gremlin! We steal things from travelers, it's what we do! There aren't laws about possessions out here. That's why the mages masked the trail! I only take from people who break our rules and come onto our territory, I swear!"

The prince looked around the room with fresh eyes, taking in all the disassembled parts and the little charms and gadgets that may have meant a lot to someone else at one point. "Is all of this stolen?"

Pidge pulled an awry smile, tilting her head like she was hoping to talk her way out of trouble through the sheer power of cuteness. "Most of it," she piped, putting her hands between her and the steadily approaching mortal. "Hey-hey, I still saved your life, remember?"

"This is the payback you were talking about!" Hunk realized.

"You think this is fair payback?" Lance shook his head. "You took our supplies, so Hunk went off looking for food, I went off looking for Hunk, and you saved us. Really it sounds like you're still in debt. We wouldn't have been in danger if you hadn't stolen from us!"

Lance would have gone on, except Hunk cleared his throat. Only partially turning away from Pidge, refusing to completely let her out of his sight again, Lance looked to Hunk, then followed where he was pointing.

It was at the luxide reader thing- the rod, actually. It looked so out of place on the pile of soldered junk; the only thing that was streamlined and cohesive and didn't seem to have been broken off from inseparable components. The rod had looked cylindrical at first, but with a better look Lance realized it was flattened, with two sharp edges and a groove that ran down either side, glowing a lime green. It reminded Lance of the rapiers he'd fenced with as a kid, before settling on being trained with a bow and arrow. He squinted, a gut feeling tugging at him to follow through on his suspicions. "Wait a second..."

Using the squares as steps, he boosted himself up on level with the rod, and was able to see down the channel of squares a faint blue glow inside the structure. He carefully grasped the rod along the flat side, needing to give a few yanks before it came free from whatever held it down. Then all it took was a little pulling before a familiar half-moon-shaped hilt, complete with a triangular blue Balmeran crystal, came free.

"No!" Pidge barked, rushing forward and trying to make a grab for the sword. "Hands off, that's mine!"

Lance held it behind and above him, holding the elf girl back by a hand on the forehead. "Where did you get this?"

"I don't know, my brother found it!" Pidge took a step back and tried to enter from the side, only to find Lance's hand tracking her every move. "He found it, I don't know where, but he didn't steal it, I swear! Don't take the antenna, it's what makes the whole thing work! I'll be back to square one without it!"

"Antenna?" Lance felt offended on the weapon's behalf. "It's a sword!"

Pidge paused at that. She frowned, eyes tracing the line of the rod. "...It is?"

"It was supposed to be buried in the cliff with the runes, right in the middle. I came here for it, I went up, I didn't find it. Okay?" When he noticed she wasn't fighting her way closer anymore, he released her. "That's what we're here for. This thing that you just so coincidentally happen to have, y'know, along with all our belongings?"

She warily shifted her gaze from him to the sword and back several times. "...Will you bring it back?"

"What?"

Pidge half-gestured at the weapon. "The... sword. If you're taking it, will you bring it back, or will I never see it again?"

The way she easily submit to whatever fate they decided for the sword, was alarming for Lance. "We didn't really come here to take it from someone," he admitted, lowering it. "We were just here to take it out the stone. And now that it's already out... it's useless."

A look of realization came across her face, then confusion. "I thought the Sword in the Stone was at Timbershire."

_Wow this kid thinks fast._ "It's a long story," he began. "There are several swords. And this one is like, the elf sword, so a lot of elves can pull it out and use it. It's only if you can pull out a sword that doesn't match your quintessence, that you're the Keeper. We came here because the Red Sword from Timbershire's already been taken."

"By a witch," Pidge filled in for him, again five steps ahead of where he expected her to be.

"Yeah." He felt his face warm at the next part of the story to tell. "I, um... I was trying to prove myself as the Keeper."

"But you're already the prince."

Realizing he'd been played for a fool from the start, he again felt like he did right after she rescued him, puny and exposed and so badly underpowered. "Not by blood, though." He rubbed his arm in self-comfort. "And the people have been revolting since they found out I'm the next king." By the look of alarm in Pidge's face, he guessed news had not yet reached the forest. "So we went for the sword, but we were too late. A witch got it, and he's heading for the border, so we're going after him. We can't let the witches get that sort of power, even if it's just one sword." He looked at the one in his hand. "Even if it's not the Red Sword. We... we can't just leave it in a forest full of witches on the border, with no-one but a little girl to defend it."

Pidge gasped. "No!" she cried out, making a jump for it again. Lance swung it back into the air just in time- it didn't look like she cared whether her hands got cut grabbing, with how she was haphazardly reaching out with cramping hands.

"We're not gonna take it from you," Lance assured, holding her gaze sternly. "But we're not leaving it behind while the witches are still around. If you come with us, we can protect the sword and you can keep it in your sight; make sure we keep our word. And if we succeed, we can get the Altean army to storm the forest and clear out the witches. Then, and only then, can you bring the sword back here yourself, and use it to find your family."

The elf stared back, gauging his word. She frowned so much Lance figured she was about to refuse.

But instead, she sighed, head sinking down and shoulders sagging. But not out of disappointment. It looked more like relief.

She tilted her head back up, looking Lance in the face. Then she smiled, the soft one that seemed to be shared between her and her family, and gave a single nod.

"Let's do it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know a lot of you are here for Klance and Keith's taking his sweet time to show up, but I promise, he will be in every chapter from the next one onward.
> 
> What would you choose- climbing up or down?


End file.
